


Overload

by SaraNoH



Series: Nadiaverse [4]
Category: Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Comfort/Angst, Deaf Clint Barton, M/M, Major Character Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-02
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2017-12-28 05:28:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 26,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/988241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaraNoH/pseuds/SaraNoH
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil Coulson must accept a problem he cannot fix.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the second story in the fic timeline I refer to as Nadiaverse. The first story is Wishes and Nightmares, but you don't have to read that one to understand what's happening here. This will be updated on Wednesdays.
> 
> DISCLAIMER: I am poor, these characters (with the exception of Nadia Rogers) aren't mine, please don't sue.

Phil Coulson was ordered to retreat to the Helicarrier. The villain of the day decided to use sonic waves to induce aggression in anyone within weapon's range, and within said range was the team of superheroes known as The Avengers.

The sonic waves were created with the hope of causing the heroes to turn on one another. If the Avengers took each other out, it would be one less thing for the evil scientist to deal with before conquering the world—or at least Phil assumed.

He was originally on the ground, just a block away from the action. He coordinated civilian evacuation using SHIELD support agents, and monitored the Initiative's progress all from a street corner. Jasper was at his side, seamlessly carrying out Phil's orders like he had for years. And that's when Phil knew something was wrong—when he possessed the overwhelming urge to choke the life out of his longtime friend and co-worker. From the rage darkening Jasper's eyes, the feeling was apparently mutual.

Things happened quickly after that, as they always did. Phil came to his senses long enough to figure out what was occurring around him. He called it in to Fury, who was keeping an eye on developments from the Helicarrier, and the Director ordered everyone save the superheroes to evacuate.

Then, things got worse.

JARVIS overheard Coulson's assessment on the aggression-inducing sonic waves and deduced that Stark's sudden targeting of Thor instead of the mad scientist bent on world domination was not a good idea. The artificial intelligence quickly put the Iron Man armor in some sort of standby mode to keep its designer from committing friendly fire.

Hulk, already fueled by anger, began to smash heavy fists down on anyone around him. Thankfully the rest of the team was quick enough to avoid the attacks, and the immobile Stark was far enough away to remain safe.

Thor and Rogers were fighting hand to hand. The only good thing that came of that was the realization that whenever Mjolnir was struck against Cap's vibranium shield, both men were able to have a moment of clarity and rise above the haze of their tempers. But as soon as the clanging sound dissipated, they were right back at each other's throats.

Phil keyed that particular bit of information into the computer terminal he sat at onboard the Helicarrier, and the databanks spat out a solution to their problems. "Hawkeye, do you read?" he called out on the comms.

It took another beating of the Asgardian hammer against Cap's shield for Clint to register his handler's voice. "Sonic arrows," Phil ordered quickly. "If you activate one and keep it close, you can take him down. Can you make the shot?"

"I'm hurt you even have to ask," Clint retorted.

"Fire the sonic first at—" Phil was cut off as his comm squelched from an overload of noise on Clint's end. The senior agent kept his eyes glued to the monitors in front of him that showed vitals for the team. Jasper shouted behind him that the target was down, and Phil drew relief at the words until the comm chatter began to focus on the man who took the shot.

Natasha called in a medevac as Phil stared at the screens in front of him to try and figure out what went wrong and why Clint's vitals had spiked before he passed out. Phil began to question the team members, but they were too lost in the effects of the sonic waves to remember what happened. And once the fog of anger lifted, their focus shifted to securing the scientist who'd caused the mess in the first place.

Phil snapped off a round of orders that initiated the clean up process and kept people busy enough so he could sneak down to medical. He got there just in time to see Clint on a gurney being wheeled back to an exam room; he was unconscious, and there was a line of dried blood running from his ear to down his neck.

Stark was still armored and on the ground. JARVIS had returned control of the suit once the threat was neutralized, and at the moment, Tony was trying to calm Hulk down enough for Banner to reemerge. From the sounds of the yells Phil heard on the Bluetooth fixed in his ear, it was going to be a while.

The remainder of the team—Rogers, Romanoff, and Thor—were also being examined. Phil noticed all three of them were cringing as medical staff inspected their ears. Thor waved the nurses off, nearly knocking one of them off her feet, and stalked away muttering words Phil couldn't quite catch since they were in an unfamiliar tongue.

"What happened down there?" he asked Natasha.

"You'll have to speak up," Cap requested. "Hard to hear you over the ringing."

"What happened?" Phil repeated, raising his voice.

"Barton set off a sonic arrow," Natasha answered. "It counteracted the effect of the weapon long enough for him to take the shot. He barely got it off before he passed out."

"What do you mean 'set it off?'" Phil demanded. "I told him to fire the sonic arrow at the target first, and then take him down."

Natasha shared a look of confusion with her husband before turning back to Phil. "That's not what happened."

"He had the thing in his mouth," Rogers elaborated.

"What?" Phil asked as his stomach dropped.

"The sonic arrowhead," Natasha clarified. "He didn't fire it; he held it in the corner of his mouth while he made the shot."

Immediately, the specs of the purpose and power of Clint's sonic arrowhead filtered through Phil's mind; there wasn't a single bit of information that was promising.

He heard someone clear their throat behind him. "Agent Coulson?" Phil turned to see Doctor Panetta, a veteran SHIELD medic, hovering in the doorway.

The look on the older man's face was all Phil needed to see, but still he had to ask.

"He's deaf, isn't he?"


	2. Chapter 2

Doctor Panetta, a veteran SHIELD medic, shook his head at Phil’s question. “Agent Barton is not completely deaf, but he did suffer some damage.”

“How bad?” Phil pressed.

The physician shrugged. “We’ll need a few days to see what’s temporary and what’s permanent. At the moment, he’s lost eighty percent in each ear, but that number could improve.”

“To zero?” The way the doctor’s lips pursed was all the answer Phil needed. “Is he awake?”

“Not yet,” Panetta replied. “He took a couple hits to the head before setting off the sonic arrow. Combining those injuries with the sensory overload from the arrowhead is going to leave him knocked out overnight, probably.”

“Concussion?”

“It’s Barton—of course he’s concussed. We’re keeping a close eye on him, Agent Coulson,” the doctor reassured. “Just wanted to give you a head’s up on the preliminary scans. I’ll check in with you again in a few hours. Your asset is down the corridor and to your right when you’re finished here.”

Phil nodded his thanks but made no move toward the tiny patient’s quarters assigned to Clint. Instead, the majority of his mind continued to replay the comms conversation he’d shared with the archer during the climax of the battle as he tried to parse out whether or not he’d given an incorrect order.

“Sorry,” Natasha apologized behind him. Phil turned back toward her and Cap as they sat on their exam beds. “Pretty sure I’m the source of the blows Clint took to the head. But for once, they weren’t on purpose.”

He nodded, his usual dry quip dying on his tongue. “Once you two are cleared, go home. We’ll save the debrief for tomorrow once we know how everyone’s fairing.”

“I can keep an eye on Tony trying to calm down The Other Guy if you want,” Steve offered. “I’m sure you’d rather have one less thing on your plate right now.”

Phil mulled over the proposition and reluctantly agreed; as much as the distraction would be welcome, he needed to focus on the greater task at hand. Leaving the two of them behind, he made his way per Panetta’s directions to the small quarters down the hall.

The room was barely big enough to contain both men. Clint appeared to be sleeping peacefully, but Phil knew that appearances, especially when the archer was involved, could be deceiving. He was still in his tactical gear from the fight, which Phil considered changing him out of. But past experience reminded Phil that Clint wasn’t a big fan of someone changing his clothes for him without permission. And Phil was also all too familiar with the fact that it was best to leave Clint’s boots on his feet so as not to asphyxiate oneself with foul odor.

The handler double-checked the bank of monitors hanging above Clint’s head. Seeing that nothing was too far out of the ordinary, Phil settled himself into the metal chair bolted to the floor against the opposite wall. He loosened his tie and pulled his phone out of his pocket. If he was going to be here a while, he could at least put a dent in his email inbox.

An hour after he’d settled into his spot of watching over Clint, the door to the room hissed open and Fury stuck his head in. The Director hooked a thumb out into the corridor, causing Phil to stand from his chair and walk out of medical quarters. He followed his boss down a maze of halls until they wound up in a secure and empty conference room.

“What’s his condition?” Fury asked as he sank into one of the swiveling chairs.

“Concussion, the usual array of bruises and lacerations.” Fury quirked an eyebrow at him until Phil gave up the last bit of information. “At the moment, eighty percent loss of hearing in both ears.”

The director released a displeased sigh and shook his head. “I can’t use a deaf sniper. You know that.”

Phil did. He knew it as soon as Rogers’d told him that Clint had made the shot with the sonic arrowhead hanging from his mouth. He knew what the consequences would be, including Clint getting his field status revoked. SHIELD would of course be willing to keep him on at a desk job, but Phil knew that Clint wouldn’t last long in that position. He was built for action and taking orders, not sitting still and dressing in suit and tie until he retired.

“What about his place in the Initiative? I can understand your reluctance for solo missions, but what about when he’s on a team?” Phil asked.

Fury cracked his knuckles while debating his answer. “You’re going to have to show me you can make it work. I need to know I’m not exposing Barton or the others to further harm by doing something like that. Show me numbers, Phil.”

The agent nodded. Whatever modicum of hope that blossomed from Fury’s willingness to at least let Clint try and remain an Avenger was squashed in Phil’s stomach when a file folder hit the table. Phil recognized it as soon as he saw it—it was the transcript from comm channels during the battle. “Page eighty-seven was flagged,” Fury informed him before rising from his chair and leaving the room, black trenchcoat swirling ominously behind him.

Phil stared down at the file folder like it was a ticking time bomb, which, in a way, it was. Fury’s warning about a section being flagged was a heads-up that the internal review board was more than likely going to have to examine what happened, especially since the events from the battle might cost SHIELD one of their Avengers.

He knew what he would find on the eighty-seventh page. Phil couldn’t remember word-for-word the orders he’d issued, or maybe he could but didn’t want to think about it. It sickened him to think he could be at fault for ruining Clint’s career, and quite possibly his life.

They’d known each other for almost a decade, and lived together in a relationship Phil never thought could happen for a year-and-a-half. They still didn’t know everything about each other since they lived in a world of secrets, but Phil certainly knew the other man well enough to know how badly this could go. He also knew that he had to be the one to tell Clint what happened to him; he just had no idea how to find the words.

Slowly, Phil reached down and picked up the file. He tucked in under his arm as he retraced his footsteps back to Clint’s medical bunk. The archer was still unconscious when Phil returned. He removed his tie and jacket and draped them on the back of the metal visitor’s chair. His stomach growled a reminder that he hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, but Phil ignored it. He dropped into the uncomfortable seat with a weary sigh, heels of his hands digging into his eyes. He waited for his vision to clear once more before opening the file and thumbing to the flagged page.

 **P. Coulson** : _Hawkeye, do you read?_

 **C. Barton** : _Copy._

 **P. Coulson** : _Sonic arrows. If you activate one and keep it close, you can take him down. Can you make the shot?_

 **C. Barton** : _I’m hurt you even have to ask._

 **P. Coulson** : _Fire the sonic first at_ —

Phil knew what the end of the sentence was: a space between the two of you. Close enough that it would disrupt the anger-inducing sonic waves yet far enough away to keep Clint out of relative harm. But he’d made the mistake of saying “keep it close” beforehand. He knew better, after years of giving orders, to be more specific—even if the asset receiving the order was the one person on the planet who knew you best.

He’d minced his words and this was the result. It was a rookie mistake, and he deserved whatever hearing or charges the internal investigations committee was going to charge him with.

Phil barely heard Natasha enter the room over the sound of the monitors hanging above Clint’s bed and the noise of his own thoughts. His eyes flickered her way before settling back on to the transcript in his lap he’d been staring at for the last three hours. She’d showered and changed clothes since the last time he’d seen her. ”You should be at home.”

"I put Nadia to bed half-an-hour ago. Steve can handle things by himself for a while,” she replied as she looked down at Clint and gently brushed some hair off his forehead. Since Phil occupied the lone chair, she settled herself on the foot of Clint’s bed.

“How are you?” Phil asked.

She shrugged. “I can feel the bruises I’ll have in the morning. Not quite sure where exactly they came from, but like that’s anything new.”

“Your hearing?”

“Medical signed off on both Steve and I. Tony and Bruce, too. We’re fine. Still have a headache and sensitivity to eight-month-old, shrieking daughters who hate getting a bath, but time will fix one of those things.”

“I thought she’d be over the bath thing by now.”

“I think she’s against being clean.” She paused to look over at Clint. “I’m blaming you for that.”

They lapsed into silence once more before Phil remembered the name she didn’t mention. “What’s Thor’s status?”

“He never came back to be checked out. You know what kind of mood he gets sucked into whenever Jane’s at a conference. The medical staff wasn’t too inclined to wrangle him in for an ear exam. Are you?”

“I’d better,” Phil sighed. “Don’t want to give anyone more evidence against me.” He hadn’t realized he’d said the words out loud until he caught Natasha tilting her head and staring at him.

“What are you talking about?”

“Not here.”

Her eyes darted around the room as she took in what security measures could be embedded in the walls. She stayed quiet for a minute before asking, “Were you flagged?” He didn’t answer, which was enough of a response for her. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“They have good reason,” he told her, eyes locked on the eagle emblem emblazoned on the front of the file folder in his lap.

“You found the solution to putting a stop to what happened today.”

“And I gave faulty orders in carrying that out.”

“You gave the order that was necessary.”

He shook his head as a bitter chuckle escaped him. “Necessary,” he spat under his breath.

Phil felt Natasha’s gaze flicker back and forth between him and Clint until it settled on him. “What aren’t you telling me?”

He scratched the back of his neck while wording a reply in his head, something that could serve as practice for whenever Clint awoke. “His hearing—“

“Will recover.”

He shook his head. “Not entirely.”

“So? We’ll work around it. Tony and Bruce can—“

“Tasha,” he started, his handler tone of voice creeping into the conversation. “They’re pulling his mission-eligible status.”

She silently studied Clint before asking, “What about his place on the team?”

“Fury’s undecided. He’s willing to make it work if we can prove that having Clint there won’t put him or the team in further danger.”

Beeping from the monitors once again became the only noise in the room, and Phil found himself wondering what exactly Clint could and couldn’t hear at the moment.

“It’s not your fault,” Natasha said quietly.

“What?” he asked as he tried to bring his thoughts back around to whatever she was trying to say.

“I’ve seen that look before—Brussels, Burmese jungle, Shanghai four years ago. You’re blaming yourself for this.”

“I gave the order, Tasha.”

“Because it’s your job to give the order. We know that.” She paused to roll her head around, a sign that her headache was getting worse. “You remember what you told me when I signed on?”

“That if you turned on us, I’d personally put a bullet in you.”

That at least brought a small smirk to her lips. “Other than that.”

He sighed and let his head fall backwards against the bulkhead. “Natasha, I’m really not in the mood for you to ask me questions you’re just going to answer yourself.”

“You promised to bring us home.” He cringed at her words and braced himself for the tongue-lashing she was probably setting up for. She kicked his foot so he’d look back up at her. “You said, ‘I promise to always bring you home, but I can’t promise that it will always be in one piece.’” He nodded at the memory; it was an oath he swore to nearly everyone who worked under him. “We knew what we were signing up for,” she continued. “We knew the risks. You did your job, and so did he. You cannot blame yourself for this.”

He let the words watch me stay in his head for fear of the physical retaliation she would take out on him otherwise. They stayed in the comfortable silence that countless hours on missions and years of building trust allowed them. Shortly before midnight, he cleared his throat. “You should get back down to ground. Go be with your—“ He stopped himself before he said family, knowing that she still wasn’t fully settled with that term.

“Call me if he wakes up or you need anything.” She slid off the bed and brushed a quick kiss to Clint’s cheek before slipping out the door.

Because he’d given an order.

He let his head fall backward again with a thud. His foot began restlessly tapping against the grated floor. Scenario after scenario played out in his mind as he prepared himself for any and all possible reactions Clint could have when he woke up. He pieced together speech after apology after fumbling words in an attempt to memorize what he would say. Not that it helped him when Clint actually regained consciousness four hours later.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always to **the_wordbutler** for beta services. Especially since this story makes you yell a lot.

Clint came to with a moan and immediately began his usual shtick of pulling monitors and leads off of his body. Phil, with practiced ease, swiped at his fingers so the nurse’s station wouldn’t think they’d just lost a patient. He knew the moment Clint truly started to wake, because the other man went still; slowly, calloused fingertips rose to touch his ears, but again, Phil grabbed hold of his fingers. This time he didn’t let go.

It was the first physical contact he’d made with Clint since the battle started. He’d refrained all through the night because half of the walls in the cramped medical quarters on the Helicarrier were made of tempered glass and offered little to no privacy. That, and Phil didn’t necessarily trust himself around Clint at the moment.

“Can you hear me?” Phil asked loudly. The panic that flooded Clint’s eyes was enough of an answer. Phil adjusted his hold on the other man’s hands so that Phil’s left held both of Clint’s. His thumb began to slowly sweep back and forth over familiar knuckles while he used the other hand to dig into his pocket for his cell phone.

He opened the app he routinely used to dictate notes for himself. Holding the microphone button, he spoke into the device so that his words would appear on the screen to show Clint. “You were injured when you used the sonic arrowhead in the fight.” He paused and held the device so Clint could read it; Phil waited for a nod before he spoke the next sentence. “You have a concussion, as well as some other injuries.”

“Ears,” Clint replied after reading what Phil said. 

Phil still didn’t know what to say, but the lost expression on his face must’ve been enough because Clint’s eyes slid shut, little lines of pain crinkling their outer edges. Phil squeezed Clint’s hands, but it didn’t earn him a response. So, on instinct, he reached up lightly slapped Clint on the cheek. It was a move he’d done before: in London when Clint’d tried to bleed out on him, in the ass-end of nowhere Northern Canada when Clint was hypothermic, in countless sparring matches when he thought Clint was letting his guard down too much, in many a late night when Clint’d fallen asleep on the couch in Phil’s office. 

What was an instinctual and typically playful ploy to engage the other man’s attention caused Clint to physically rear his head back and Phil to be washed anew in guilt. He pulled his phone up to his mouth to speak a new note. “As of yesterday, your hearing loss was at eighty percent, but they think that could go down.” Clint read the message with a stony expression. Not a single emotion flickered over his features as he absorbed the information. “Are you in pain?” Phil asked.

Clint shrugged. “Ringing is worse than anything,” he answered loudly. Too loudly for the small room.

Movement in the corridor caught Phil’s eye, and he watched Doctor Panetta come around the corner and walk through the door. He gave a nod to Phil before handing a piece of paper to Clint, which the doctor proceeded to read aloud. It detailed what happened to Clint since he was admitted yesterday afternoon: the hearing tests, the damage done to his ears, the severity of his concussion. Phil watched Clint’s face for some sort of reaction, but there was nothing.

He didn’t pay much attention to Doctor Panetta’s words, which he probably should’ve since Clint more than likely wouldn’t be able to hear the man. It was all in the notes on Clint’s medical file; Phil could look it up if need be. 

The medic said his piece and then left. Clint studied the paper the doctor had given him for a moment before once again disconnecting wires and sensors from his body and swinging his legs over the edge of the bunk to slowly stand. Phil reached out to grab his arm for support but could feel Clint tense at the contact, so he withdrew his fingers. “Where are you going?” he asked loudly. Clint answered by pointing to the bottom of Panetta’s report which noted that he was released from medical care, but was on medical leave until further notice and had to report back in seventy-two hours for another hearing test.

Phil nodded and helped Clint gather his things. “I’ll find us a pilot,” he said as a test when Clint’s back was turned. There was no reaction, not even the slightest flinch at Clint having his wings revoked even for the short trip from the Helicarrier to Stark Tower. Phil’s jaw ground hard as that realization sunk in. He closed his eyes for a brief second and hoped to whoever would listen that this would be a temporary situation.

He swiped his phone’s screen open and typed what he’d said into the window. He circled as wide around Clint as he could in the small room so as not to startle the other man and held out the screen. Again, the other man’s face showed no emotion as he quickly read the words and gave a curt nod of acknowledgement.

It took two minutes for them to gather all of their belongings, seven for Phil to find a pilot to meet them at a Quinjet stashed in the Helicarrier hangar, ten minutes for pre-flight, and twelve to get back to the Tower. It was the longest flight in Phil’s life.

This wasn’t the usual ride back home filled with jokes, betting, and retellings of how the battle went. It wasn’t a smooth ride because the pilot wasn’t as talented as Clint. And, when they reached their destination, things would somehow pass some barrier into finality: the two of them would walk into their apartment and things would be completely different.

Or would they? They’d survived Phil dying and coming back to life. Well, mostly. From the few stories he’d been willing to listen to about Clint’s state of being while Phil was recovering from Loki’s attack, it sounded like the archer was as broken and beat up after the Battle of New York as Phil was. 

They’d come back from that, and they’d only had a couple of dates before Loki’d shown up again. Now, they’d been living together since Phil’s return a year and a half ago. They’d held each other up when they both thought they were going to lose Natasha to Loki’s magic spell eight months ago. After enduring all of that, surely they could make it through this.

 _Can you?_ a voice in Phil’s head asked. _Can you really?_

He shoved down the doubts and braced himself both emotionally and physically for the landing. Once the Quinjet touched down on the pad on Stark Tower, Phil gave a nod to the pilot and climbed out of the craft after Clint. They’d both barely cleared the vehicle before it lifted off once more to make the return trip to the Helicarrier. Phil fought the instinct to cover his ears at the noise, part of him feeling it necessary to endure just a faint taste of what Clint would now live with.

Of course, it was possible that Clint could recover from this. They lived with two of the greatest minds science had ever seen; it was entirely feasible that this would be a temporary thing, another in a long list of nightmares and close calls that they’d endured over the ten years of working together.

Clint saw the shadow before Phil did, the turn of his head drawing Phil’s attention. He followed the other man’s line of sight just in time to see Natasha peel herself away from the wall just to the side of the door that led into the sole common floor they all shared. He wasn’t surprised at her presence; she undoubtedly had multiple people set up a system of alerts to update her on Clint’s progress and when he would return home.

Phil watched as she strode up to Clint, green eyes unblinking and taking in his frame. They both stopped when they were within a foot of each other. The stare-off continued for a minute longer, Natasha scrutinizing every bit of his face while Clint’s chin lifted slightly in the air as a challenge. Her hand came up, and she flicked in him in his forehead with a red nail before brushing a fast kiss to each cheek. Clint’s chin dropped to his chest and Phil’s feet moved of their own accord to come up next to him. His hand came to rest on the other man’s lower back and Phil propelled all three of them inside. 

The trio made it to the elevator where Nat took point since her floor would come up before Clint and Phil’s. It was also a convenience so she could say, “Call me if you need me,” with her back to both of them and only let Phil know she was offering the assistance to do what Clint would undoubtedly classify as “babysitting.”

The men entered their quarters and JARVIS turned the lights on halfway. Out of habit, Phil moved to the bedroom and began shedding his suit as he went. A quick glance at his watch told him it was a little after five in the morning. There really wasn’t any point in trying to sleep, not that he was sure he could with his mind racing like it was, but he could at least work for a couple of hours in a t-shirt and sweatpants.

They quickly fell into their normal routine: Clint tucked his weapon and gear away neatly before stripping and heading for the shower, and Phil began to set up shop at the dining room table (even though he had an office in their quarters.) Just as he was going full tilt in writing up reports and filling out the necessary post-battle forms, he heard Clint pad out into the kitchen and start the coffee maker. 

It almost felt normal. For just a second Phil could slip into the lie that the last twenty-four hours hadn’t happened. His heart longed for Clint to stroll into the dining room humming some melody under his breath, place a mug at Phil’s elbow, brush a kiss into Phil’s hair, plop down in the seat next to him, swing his feet up on the table, and sip his coffee as he watched the sky lighten from a deep purple to bright pink with the sunrise.

Most of that was what happened a couple minutes later. Coffee was deposited on the table, Clint took the seat beside him, and they both slowly sipped down some much needed caffeine. But there was no contact, no ease in Clint’s movements. He still stared out the window, but Phil knew from his face that he wasn’t just taking in the sight of the city before them—Clint’s mind was far away. He was tempted to reach over and stroke his arm or bump his knee or something, but Clint had done nothing but tense up whenever Phil touched him since waking, and the man was already wound so tight Phil was scared that any further contact would cause Clint to twist and fold in on himself like an imploding star.

Phil continued to tap away at his keyboard until a notification popped up that the team debrief was to start in an hour. He finished the paragraph he was on, quickly threw together an agenda for the meeting and sent that off, and drained his mug for the last drops of coffee he could get. The motion of him standing drew Clint out of whatever mental fog he’d gotten lost in, and he looked up at Phil with expectant blue-gray eyes. “Debrief,” Phil explained loudly.

Clint nodded. “Need me?” he asked.

It wasn’t at the right volume, too soft due to overcompensation. Phil shook his head. “Medical leave, remember? You get to skip out on the boring meetings.” He wasn’t sure how much Clint actually heard, but he must’ve caught the gist of it since he resumed his staring out at the wall of windows lining one side of their apartment. Phil turned and brushed his fingers along Clint’s broad shoulders as he made a stop in the kitchen to refill his mug before heading off to the shower. 

Under the hot spray of water, he tried to focus on what his schedule would be like and what all needed to be accomplished, but his mind wouldn’t settle. Instead, it chose to break down every hard line on Clint’s face. Phil shut off the water and quickly dressed. When he walked back out into the dining room, Clint hadn’t moved. Phil gathered his needed files before pausing to look down at the top of Clint’s head.

Already he was tired of the hesitation in his actions, but it didn’t stop him from standing there for a moment while debating the best approach. Reaching into his pocket once more for his phone, he typed out, I have to go. Need anything? He held the phone down close to Clint’s face. A quick shake of the head was all the answer Phil received.

It pulled at his gut to see Clint like this. Rarely had the other man been this closed off in front of Phil, but every time he had, it centered around fear. Phil could easily understand the presence of that emotion since it was currently consuming his own mind.

He leaned down and placed a kiss into Clint’s still-damp hair. Before straightening up, he closed his eyes and took in a deep breath of the smell of shampoo and the spiced scent of body wash. The only upside to Clint’s current condition was it allowed Phil to whisper an apology into Clint’s hair without fear of being overheard.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to say this story is now going to be switching to biweekly updates. I haven't been writing as much as I'd hoped to keep up with a weekly update schedule and I don't want the words to turn to crap because I'm rushing to produce things. Again, my apologies.
> 
> Thanks as always to **the_wordbutler** for the beta. If you feel the need to yell at me for things in this story, just know she's probably beat you to the punch.

Phil stepped off the elevator and on to the common floor. As usual, he was the first one in the conference room that was used for team debriefs when they were all meeting in Stark Tower. He walked around the table, depositing five folders in each team member’s usual spot as he repeated the meeting’s agenda in his head. The comfort associated with the normalcy of this pre-morning ritual calmed him, and he felt a light amount of tension seep out of his shoulders as he let routine take over and focused entirely on his day’s schedule.

Bruce was the first one in the door, coffee and donut in hand. He gave Phil a small smile before taking his usual seat, wiping the excess powdered sugar off his fingers with his napkin, and flipping through the pages within his personal file folder. Thor followed a moment later. He nodded to Phil and joyously informed him and Bruce that Jane was to return later today. Steve and Natasha walked in a moment later; she apologized for not arriving sooner and Steve explained that he had to change his shirt since Nadia tried her best to get half her breakfast of some pureed baby food all down the front of him. Tony, per usual, was the last to enter. The billionaire quickly ended his phone conversation and told everyone that Pepper—away on business in London—said hello.

Phil gave one more headcount, because old habits were hard to let go of and even though it wasn’t a mission, they were still his people. As was the normal routine, once he got everyone’s attention, he reviewed step by step what happened in the battle. He walked through each minute, retelling the event and adding in background information and context that wasn’t available in the moment when the fight took place.

He made it to the end, explaining how the sonic waves caused everyone to go into an angered rage and turn on one another, and paused. The break in his analysis wasn’t one of any substantial length, but just enough that Phil knew if he looked up from the comm transcript in his hands, he’d find Natasha staring him down. He cleared his throat and talked through the orders that were given to Hawkeye—not Clint, that wasn’t the name he could use right now—and how the archer successfully stopped the effects of the sonic waves so their enemy could be taken down.

It never sat well in Phil’s stomach when a mission was called a success when it came at the cost of an asset.

Steve was the first to ask about Clint’s condition. Phil knew the question was coming, and he wasn’t the least bit surprised about who it came from. Even though the man was married to Natasha and had undoubtedly heard nearly every update she had, he was still the team’s leader. And like Coulson, Cap had a habit of counting heads and making sure all of his ducks were in a row. Even if said ducks were Asgardian royalty and irradiated rage monsters.

“He’s on medical leave for the time being,” Phil answered. “He suffered a nasty concussion, which for him is a normal Tuesday, and it’ll be a few days before the medical staff retests his hearing to see if it’s improved any.”

“What were the original readings?” Bruce asked.

“Eighty percent loss,” Natasha answered.

Bruce turned to Tony, and Phil watched the silent conversation shared solely between their eyebrows that ensued. He was grateful that the men were already devising plans to help with the matter. Phil would’ve asked, but it looked like he wasn’t going to have to put in that position.

A small voice tried to remind him that they were a family—a screwed up, dysfunctional, brood no doubt, but still family. And because of that he wouldn’t have to be alone in helping Clint, even if he felt he needed to bear that burden on his own.

Phil asked if there were any more questions, which there weren’t, and he dismissed them all to go about their day. As he gathered his things, he received an alert that Clint had clocked in on the range four floors down in Stark Tower. Phil had the system put in place that let him know whenever the archer began practice time so Phil could measure how long Clint pushed himself. Rarely did the other man follow the regulated limit of how much time could be spent on the range in a week.

Doctor Panetta hadn’t restricted Clint from practicing his archery, and Phil was sure Clint needed the physical release of losing himself in shot after shot. He debated on how long to give him on the range and settled on three hours, setting up an alarm on his phone that was most likely unnecessary as a reminder.

Phil brushed off a lunch invitation from Steve and ignored more of Natasha’s stares as he retreated to the office in his quarters. No one would think twice about him working from home. Even though he and Clint never made a show of their relationship—at least nothing beyond shoulder bumps and snarky chats on the comm, but that’d happened for years before they were together—everyone knew they were a couple. That was what happened when one worked for an intelligence agency: your life was no longer private. Your co-workers were the best intelligence assets the world had to offer and rarely saw the problem on spying on those around them.

Even though he had the excuse of wanting to keep an eye on Clint, it was apparently obvious to his co-workers and friends that Phil was hiding. He ignored texts from Jasper, Maria, and Pepper before silencing his phone and pushing away from his desk with a huff of frustrated air. He’d typed the same paragraph for twenty minutes now and he was more than likely going to have rewrite the entire report at this point.

Disgruntled, he checked the time and realized Clint had forty-five minutes remaining on the range before Phil was going to pull him off. In need of clearing his head, he left his work behind in his office and decided on a walk. His feet unsurprisingly led him to wander through the floor that served as a giant gym. He meandered around weight machines and boxing rings to make it to the back corner and the private elevator that was the main access route to the firing range one floor down.

He ambled down the hallway, remembering how this was where he first encountered Natasha and Clint upon his return from the dead. Guarding the door at the end of the corridor that led out to the range, it had been Natasha who greeted him with a pair of knives hurled at either side of his head. Clint, on another of his self-flagellation binges, had fired arrow after arrow until he nearly collapsed at Phil’s feet, begging forgiveness. And this morning, Phil’s knees fought the urge not to return the favor when he caught sight of Clint.

Phil slipped through the door and stood in the shadows as he kept his eyes on Clint. The other man wore a t-shirt, ratty pair of jeans, and boots. A quiver was slung low on his hip and in his hands was his favorite bow. There wasn’t anything fancy about it, no scopes or sensors; just wood and string, as simple and pure as that type of weapon could be. Phil’s brain fought not to make a metaphor between the bow and its owner because he knew Clint wasn’t necessarily pure, and the word “simple” had a connotation to it that didn’t feel right. Like the bow, Clint didn’t possess anything that a stranger would attribute as special. He was, however, reliable, efficient, and well-worn. 

Phil watched arrow after arrow fire downrange. Clint’s accuracy hadn’t suffered because of his injury, but it was obvious—to eyes that had watched the man for a decade, anyway—that more effort than necessary was required to keep up with the strain of moving targets and maintaining perfect aim. After a couple of hours, it wasn’t surprising that Clint was sweating, but his breathing shouldn’t have been as rapid as it was now. Phil watched the pulse point on the archer’s neck beat out a quickened pace, something that was also out of sorts.

Phil waited until the quiver was empty. Stark had set up an automatic arrow retrieval system when he first built the range shortly after the Battle of New York two years ago. Clint, as was the case some days when he had a lot on his mind, had the system turned off this morning. Phil waited for him to start moving down range to collect his projectiles, but instead, he turned around. Despite not hearing him come in and Phil standing in the shadows, Clint’s eyes knew exactly where to look. Phil stepped out of his dark corner and walked up to Clint, his eyes taking in the sight of him. He looked more like the lost young man who’d been passed off from agent to agent when Phil’d first joined SHIELD than the carefree person he shared his life with. 

Clint’s face was expectant as he waited for his next set of instructions. It was a display of trust that Phil wasn’t sure he deserved anymore. Phil’s mind once more battled with the choice of giving into physical contact, even if it ran the risk of being reciprocated with a flinch, but in this moment that was a danger he was willing to take. He walked over to Clint with measured steps until they were standing face to face; then, he wrapped a hand around the back of Clint’s neck and pulled him in for a hug. The other man melted into the contact for just a moment before taking a step back.

“I’ll get sweat on your suit,” he explained.

Phil gave a small nod before jerking his head towards the door and leading them out of the practice range. His mind tried to wonder about anything other than when Clint would allow him to touch him again.

* * *

The next two days served as a major adjustment time for both of them. There was a lot of fumbling when it came to communication, something that neither of them were great at in the first place. They relied on writing notes and hand signals they’d used in the field. Phil tried not to ask too many questions, but Clint did admit he could hear slightly better than before, even if the ringing in his ears was still going strong.

Phil was scheduled for a series of meetings at Headquarters when Clint’s hearing test was to take place. He danced around asking the other man if he wanted him there, but Clint always told him no. “I’ll see you tonight,” Phil said with an attempt at a small smile as he waved goodbye. Normally, he’d steal a quick kiss, too, but touching was apparently still off the table.

“What do you want to eat?” Clint asked.

Phil shook his head and pointed at the drawer brimming with takeout menus. “We can just order something.” It was apparently the wrong thing to say since Clint’s face fell. Not wanting to make anything else worse, Phil gave a small finger wave and made a break for the elevator. On the ride down to the parking garage of Stark Tower, he tried to figure out where this particular misstep had taken place. It wasn’t like he was trying to keep Clint out of the kitchen; Phil just didn’t want to add to the list of things Clint had to do today since his doctor’s appointment could be fairly overwhelming. 

He shoved down and compartmentalized his thoughts as he drove down to SHIELD headquarters. He absorbed himself in meeting after meeting just so the endless questions and what-if scenarios didn’t drown his mind. Phil didn’t bother trying to hide the fact that he was checking the time constantly, counting down the hours and then minutes until Clint was scheduled to go down to the medical floor of Stark Tower for his test. 

He thumbed open the calendar on his phone and swiped until it brought up Natasha’s schedule. She had the afternoon off, and Phil was willing to bet his life savings that even if Clint hadn’t consented for her to be present, she’d be lurking nearby. He was half-tempted to text her for a status report when Fury called on him to answer a question during the meeintg. Phil was a good enough agent to be able to spout off the needed information without thinking too much about it, and then, he tried to ignore the one-eyed stare that lingered in his direction for the remainder of the afternoon.

It did, however, influence Phil to leave his phone alone. So it wasn’t until after the meeting was over, an hour after Clint’s scheduled appointment, that Phil saw two new emails in his inbox. He opened the one from Doctor Panetta first and tried to wrap his mind around the words within. While Clint’s assumption that his hearing had improved was true, the hearing tests showed that he was incapable of hearing anything softer than around fifty to sixty decibels. According to Panetta’s conclusion, the sound of conversation was roughly the lower end of Clint’s hearing range now.

The second email Phil didn’t even bother opening. He knew what its contents were simply by the subject line of the message:

**_Barton, Clinton F.: Field Eligibility Status—REVOKED_ **

The tiny paperclip icon symbolized the forms Phil would have to fill out to prevent Clint from going on missions which had been the man’s life for the last twelve years and the one place Clint felt truly comfortable and capable.

Phil locked his phone and slipped it into his pocket. He walked out of the conference room, ignored Sitwell calling his name, and kept moving until he was back in his and Clint’s quarters. On the way there, his brain kept switching back and forth between two lines of thought. The first was wondering where Clint could work within SHIELD that would make him still feel valued and not let him grow bored; Phil wasn’t really sure such a place existed. The second topic was making a list of all the sounds softer than regular conversation: the twang of a bow string, rustling of sheets, panting and gasps in the dark, soft chuckles, the sigh with a faint humming noise Nadia always gave as a sign that she was fully asleep—all things that, unless Tony and Bruce could work a miracle, Clint would never hear again.

Phil loudly called Clint’s name when he entered their home, but didn’t get a response. It took a minute of ducking in out of rooms until he spotted the other man on the balcony that overlooked the city. Clint had his forearms propped up on the railing, an unlabeled bottle containing a deep amber liquid dangling from his fingertips. Phil recognized the liquor; it was some homemade brew that Jasper had given them as prize for winning some bet Phil couldn’t remember. What Phil could recall with agonizing detail was splitting a couple of shots two months back with Clint, the heady heat that flooded his body, and the way he could taste the drink on Clint’s tongue. 

He walked over to stand next to Clint and copied his posture. Phil stared at him until Clint looked over. “I’m sorry,” he apologized loud enough that he hoped Clint could hear.

Clint shrugged in response. “It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not. I—“

Clint sighed and shook his head. “I’ve stopped counting how many bones I’ve broken. I spend more days with a concussion than without. There are spots on my body that are completely numb from getting shot or falling out of buildings or who knows what. I’m thirty-seven and it hurts to get out of bed in the morning. My body’s ruined. Might as well quit while I can still walk.”

Phil wanted to argue, but he knew there was truth in Clint’s words. He knew the story behind almost every injury and scar catalogued on the younger man’s body, and as much as he didn’t want to admit it right now, the last few days had shown him that maybe it was better for Clint to quit when most of him still existed then waiting until the day when Phil came back from a mission without Clint altogether.

It was a lesson they should have already learned when Phil had died on the Helicarrier right before the Battle of New York. And maybe Clint had, perhaps that was why he was able to reason with all of this, but Phil wasn’t there mentally. Not yet, anyway. Unsure of what to do but positive the last thing Clint wanted was false words of reassurance, Phil reached over and snagged the bottle from Clint’s fingers and downed two healthy gulps.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always to the amazing **the_wordbutler** for helping my words make sense.

Phil wasn’t expecting for Bruce to schedule a meeting so soon, but the day after the notification came down that Clint would no longer be allowed on field missions, there was a message to come to Tony’s lab to discuss options.

Phil’d awoken with a hangover, something he rarely let himself be subjected to anymore, and judging from the way Clint was squinting at any source of even the faintest light, he wasn’t in much better shape. They silently slugged their way through cereal and a couple mugs of coffee each before taking turns in the bathroom to shave and shower. The quiet in their home was too much; it grated on Phil’s nerves. Their quarters were never quiet—Clint would be humming, the news would be on the television, Phil would be talking on the phone, their friends would be over to talk until the wee hours of the morning. But never was it this quiet. 

Once they were both dressed and nodded at each other to signal they were both ready, they exited their quarters and entered the elevator to go down to the series of labs that Tony’d labeled _Candyland_ on the Stark Tower building schematics. They stood a foot apart as Coulson declared their destination for JARVIS. The distance between them—normally Clint would have (at least) his shoulder pressed up against Phil’s—and the quiet caused Phil to reach his breaking point. Part of his brain laughed at that thought; a number of people had tried to break and bend Phil Coulson, but only Clint Barton was ever truly successful.

Phil called out for JARVIS to halt the elevator as he moved to stand in front of Clint. The other man sensed them coming to a stop, and his eyes fell to the floor. It stabbed Phil in the gut that this was now Clint’s physical response to a conversation: avoiding eyes, ducking heads, crumpling in on himself. For the last few days, Phil had used the reaction as a means of self-punishment, but his heart couldn’t take anymore. He reached out and lifted Clint’s chin so they were looking eye to eye. “I’m sorry,” he said loudly enough for Clint to hear. “I’m so sorry.”

“’s my fault.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Phil, I—“

But Phil wasn’t in the mood to hear any more incorrect excuses from Clint’s lips; he had a better plan involving them. Phil kissed him hard enough that the sensation started out as pain before drifting into something more pleasurable as he backed Clint against the wall of the elevator. The hand that was on Clint’s chin slid around to the back of his neck while Phil’s other arm wrapped around his waist and held his body tightly against his own. Clint resisted for a moment before giving in, both of them drowning in the need for touch that had gone absent for the last few days.

They remained tangled up in each other until the need to catch their breath was too overwhelming, and even then, they kept their foreheads resting against each other while using strong grips to hold themselves together. Phil kept his eyes tightly closed and whispered apology after apology against Clint’s lips. Clint stopped him by coming in for another kiss, this one slower and gentler but still fiery. They broke apart once more and Clint ordered JARVIS to resume their path down to the research labs.

Phil smoothed out his suit while Clint straightened himself up, and just before the door opened, he reached over to take Clint’s hand and gave it a quick squeeze before they walked out. When they entered the lab, Bruce greeted them with a smile while Tony snapped orders at JARVIS to finish some calibrations for tests the scientists wanted to run on Clint.

“Here,” Bruce said as he handed Clint what looked like a set of headphones and mimed for him to put them on.

“What will that do?” Phil asked.

“Amplify noise,” Bruce answered. “Think of it as a bullhorn. We’ll run tests to specialize some hearing aids that will act as a tailored microphone to compensate for hearing loss as much as possible.”

“I have to do more tests?” Clint said, now capable of hearing conversations around him. Phil recognized the amount of exhaustion he was trying to cover up in his voice.

“SHIELD medical sucks,” Tony snarked from across the room. “My phone can run better tests than their diagnostic equipment.”

“We’ll use the data to build customized equipment—not just hearing aids, but custom add-ons for your gear,” Bruce explained.

Phil felt his stomach twist. “Or how about we develop a procedure to rectify the damage?” He watched Bruce and Tony exchange hesitant looks.

“We’ll see if Tony’s equipment can pick up something SHIELD medical missed. But if it doesn’t… There’s not much we can do, and any procedure brings an incredibly high risk to only further the damage done.”

Bruce’s response wasn’t satisfactory enough for Phil’s liking, but he kept his opinions to himself for now. He turned to Clint to quietly ask, “You want me to stay?”

Clint shook his head. “You’ve got other stuff to do. I’ll be fine. Unless you’re into watching Tony poke and prod me with his equipment.”

The joking tone of voice sounded correct, but Clint’s smirk didn’t reach his eyes. Phil didn’t make a point of pushing Clint any further. Instead, he gave everyone a nod and requested that Bruce send him hourly updates and for Clint to let him know when the whole thing was over.

Phil elected to work from the office in his quarters once again since the only thing on his schedule was a video conference with Maria, who was in Moscow, but the Assistant Director’s schedule had changed and their meeting was delayed until the following afternoon. Before he could check his phone again, JARVIS alerted him to Jasper’s presence at the door. Phil considered telling the artificial intelligence to let the agent know he wasn’t home, but fat lot of good that would do. Jasper was a nosy shit and probably knew exactly where Phil was at all times. He’d gotten a little clingy after what everyone referred to as Phil’s trip to Tahiti—not as bad as Clint had been in the beginning, but still.

Phil rose from his desk with a sigh, but didn’t get to the door soon enough since he could hear Jasper yell, “Open up, asshole, I know you’re in there.” He placed his palm against the door sensor and the entrance to their quarters hissed open to reveal Jasper standing there, slightly damp and cradling a brown, grease-stained paper bag. Phil didn’t even bother with a greeting—at least, nothing more than waving his friend inside.

“I stood in the rain to bring you delicious greasyness,” Jasper prattled as he walked around Phil and began pulling Styrofoam containers out of the bag and setting them out on the table. “This is the kind of friend I am. You know who’s not a good friend? You.”

Phil didn’t respond, just popped the lid on the container closest to him. It opened to reveal a juicy burger and greasy fries from a diner he and Jasper visited at least a couple times a month. “Extra pickles?”

“Yes. Because, as previously stated, I’m a good friend and I know how you like your food.”

“Are you here to bring me lunch or to chew my ass out?” Phil asked dryly before stuffing a few fries into his mouth.

“I’m multitasking, shut up.” Jasper paused to take a slurp of his chocolate and strawberry milkshake. He always did a little harmless flirting with the waitress at the counter to earn the special order. “Are you going to be like a soap opera now? You and Barton? Because let me tell you, ain’t nobody got time for that.”

“You love soap operas, so what’s your complaint?”

“My wife loves soap operas,” Jasper clarified while pointing his burger at Phil. “And I love my wife and only get about three hours a week alone with her, and if she wants to spend that time watching soap operas, so be it. She gets very grateful about it later,” he finished with a smirk.

Phil rolled his eyes and swallowed a mouthful of burger before asking, “How are Anne and the girls?”

“Fine. Anniversary’s next month. Girls are finally old enough to be left by themselves for a few hours.”

“You’re actually okay with that?” Phil prodded. He’d heard Jasper lament more times than he could remember about how much he hated how his little girls were no longer little girls.

“If it means Anne and I can sneak out to eat dinner at a place that doesn’t have a kid’s menu, I’m all for it.” He chewed on his burger a moment while eying Phil. “We gonna talk about this or you seriously just going to pretend that everything is hunky-dory?”

“Talk about what?”

Jasper rolled his eyes. “How you and Barton are in Angst City and can’t find a map to make your way out.”

Phil shot him a dirty look. “That’s none of your business.”

“It’s always none of my business. Or classified. Or whatever bullshit you need to spew to cover up the fact that you’re in over your head but too damn stubborn to ask for help. And as someone who helped put Humpty Dumpty back together while you were playing dead or whatever—and you know Barton was barely functional while you were gone—I do not want to lose what little free time I have with my family to try and patch up you idiots.”

He felt his eyebrows raise slightly at the diatribe. “Geez, Jasper, tell me how you really feel.” Jasper made no move to respond, just sat back in his chair and stared waiting for details. Phil fought back a sigh, but he did push away his partially-eaten lunch with a grimace. “I don’t know what you want me to say,” he admitted quietly.

“How about you start with telling me whether or not you’re okay?”

Phil swallowed his instinctual answer to lie and say everything was fine, because it obviously wasn’t. Not to someone like Jasper. They’d known each other for over fifteen years, seen action both as soldiers in the army and as SHIELD agents, Phil had stood up with Jasper at his wedding, and Jasper had guarded Phil’s back more than just about anyone. “No, I’m not okay,” he answered softly.

“So what are you going to do about it?”

A small, bitter huff of air escaped Phil. “Do about it? There’s nothing I can do to fix this. Nothing. And it’s my fault.”

“You paid some guy to use sonic waves to piss everyone off so he could try and take over the world?”

“No.”

“Then not your fault.”

Phil’s jaw clamped down as he felt his temper spike. There was no way this situation was as easy as Jasper was making it out to be. He felt some sharp retort form on his tongue, but it was halted by the ding of his cell phone alerting him to a new text message. After he read Bruce’s words, his eyes slid shut in defeat and he tossed the phone onto the table carelessly, nearly knocking over Jasper’s milkshake.

“What is it?” his friend asked.

“Banner and Stark don’t think they can do anything to reverse the damage done to Clint’s hearing.”

He heard Jasper’s suit rustle as the agent sat up in his seat. “Yeah, but you kind of knew that going into things, right?”

He should have. Phil’d attained the level of senior agent and his clearance code because he could see the whole picture in front of him and how all the individual pieces moved. But this—this neon flashing light of doom—he tried to ignore it with all his might. That tactic wasn’t working.

“What’s their plan?” Jasper asked.

Phil shrugged as he reopened his eyes, but kept his focus on his hands in his lap. “They talked about hearing aids and modifying his equipment, not that the latter will make much of a difference.”

Jasper gave a small, sad nod. “Heard about his field status being revoked.” He paused to lean forward. “But that doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world.”

“It is for him.”

“You don’t know that. How many times have we bitched about junior agents not having the proper training they should? You know he’d be amazing at that. Or if not, then he could always—“

“Thanks for lunch,” Phil replied brusquely as he closed the lid on the Styrofoam container, most of the food still inside, and stood to stash it in the fridge.

He felt Jasper’s eyes trail his movement through the open layout of the apartment. “Don’t do this, Phil.”

“Do what?”

“Shut us out. We’re trying to help you. You know I’m going to be the nicest one about it. If you ignore me, you’re only going to have to deal with the likes of Romanoff, Hill, and Fury.”

His warning caused Phil’s mind to flash back to the previous December when Clint had sat on the couch with a four-month-old Nadia curled up against him as he read to her about Ebenezer Scrooge and his three ghosts of various Christmases. He clung to the warmth and love in the mental image as an attempt to soothe the ever-growing knot of tension in his neck and shoulders.

“They’re wrapping up testing,” Phil informed him. “I should get down there. Thanks for lunch.”

They walked out the door and into the elevator in silence once Jasper cleaned up his things. When Phil was about to walk off onto the floor where the labs resided, Jasper called his name. “Please talk to someone. Anyone. Don’t make them force into you psych visits. You know that isn’t going to look good right now.”

Phil didn’t need the reminder that he would be more than likely put under investigation; it was one of several thoughts constantly dogging his mind. He didn’t respond to Jasper’s plea, just kept walking. 

When he stepped into the lab, Clint gave him a nod. “Was just getting ready to text you.”

“You okay?”

The other man shrugged. “’Bout as I expected.”

“We should have customized hearing aids ready by morning,” Bruce informed them. 

Phil nodded. “And you’ll rerun his test results to make sure something can’t be done to fix things?”

Bruce’s shoulders slumped slightly at the request. “Phil, I promise you, we’ve looked at—“

“Of course,” Tony interrupted. “We’ll look at everything again, call in a few people—no names mentioned for the patient, of course—if need be.”

“Thank you.” He placed his hand on Clint’s back and guided him out of the lab and back to the elevator. Once they were inside, his eyes caught on something plastic and flesh-toned in the other man’s ear.

“Temps,” Clint explained. “They can mostly do the job in the meantime.”

“How are you feeling?”

He shrugged. “Headache’s finally gone. Wish the ringing would do the same.” Phil looked at him expectantly, waiting for more than just surface details. Clint’s gaze turned to his boots. “I don’t know, Phil. Still trying to process, I guess.”

They spent the rest of the afternoon and into the early evening doing things on their own while in the same room. Phil continued on his endless supply of paperwork while Clint set about cleaning his weaponry. They both knew he wouldn’t need it anytime soon, and they both realized the task for what it was—Clint’s need to stay busy so he wouldn’t have time to think about what’d happened. Same reason Phil drowned himself in paperwork.

Clint had just put away his sniper rifle when JARVIS alerted them that they had guests. The door opened to reveal Steve holding Nadia, black diaper bag slung over his shoulder. “It’s Tuesday,” he told Phil in a gentle reminder. “If you guys don’t want to take her tonight, it’s fine. I know you’ve got a lot going on.” 

Phil mentally cursed himself for forgetting what night of the week it was. They’d had a standing tradition to take Nadia for a few hours every Tuesday evening since she was about three months old so Steve and Natasha could have some time to themselves. “Of course, we’ll take her,” Phil answered as he rose from the chair and walked over to scoop the eight-month-old from her father’s arms. 

“We won’t be gone long, just going to take a ride around town on the bike.”

Phil waited for a witty comeback from Clint regarding other riding plans Steve and Natasha probably had for the evening, but it didn’t happen. 

Steve looked at Phil after his eyes flickered over to where Clint sat in an overstuffed armchair; apparently, Phil wasn’t the only one waiting for a retort. “Can he…?”

“I read you, Cap,” Clint answered for himself as he rose from his seat.

“I want you to know,” Steve started with his attention focused solely on Clint and raising his voice slightly, “I spoke to Director Fury today. The team is willing to do everything we can to keep you with us.”

Clint gave a small, humble nod. “Appreciate it, but I don’t want you guys to have to constantly watch my back. It’s not fair to you.”

Steve’s shoulders drew back, a commanding stance he probably didn’t realize he adopted whenever he was about to spout some speech. “It’s not fair to you either. No one has better eyes or instincts than you do out there. We’d suffer without you.”

“What did Fury say about it?” Phil asked as Nadia wriggled in his grasp. He ran a hand up and down her back, and she quickly settled against his side. 

“He said he’d want to run some drills when you felt ready,” Steve answered in Clint’s direction. “If you want to stay on the team, we’ll fight tooth and nail to keep you there.”

“Thanks,” Clint quietly replied.

Steve nodded before leaning in to give Nadia a kiss on her chubby cheeks. “See you in a bit, Bug. Two hours okay?” he asked of Phil.

“That’s fine.”

He gave a small smile before his eyes caught on the hearing aids in Clint’s ears. “She’s going to try and grab those, just so you know,” he warned with an apologetic grimace.

“I’ve got fast hands,” Clint said with a shrug. “It’ll be fine.”

Once Steve left the apartment, the two men remained rooted in place. Recently, Clint’s favorite game was to chase Nadia around their home on his hands and knees; the girl would squeal and scream with delight while she crawled at an impressive speed. But today, Clint seemed more content to stare off into the distance.

“I need to change before she spits up on my suit. Can you take her?” Phil asked.

There was a slight hesitation to his movements before he reached out. Nadia practically flung herself into his arms. The action brought the smallest of grins to his face, the first Phil’d seen in days. 

He placed Nadia’s diaper bag on the floor before making his way into the bedroom. He was surprised to hear Clint on his heels. “You sure you’re okay?” he asked over his shoulder.

“I don’t know what these things are capable of,” Clint answered in reference to his hearing aids, “and you know how she can go into stealth mode.” Phil nodded. Nadia, a genetic clone of Natasha with the exception of bio-enhancements, already knew how to silently move around and slip out from under watchful eyes of her caretakers. 

As they entered the bedroom, Clint fell back onto the bed with Nadia held to his chest. She smiled and cooed at the motion and immediately began crawling over Clint and around the mattress as soon as she was free. Whenever she got too close to the edge for his comfort, Clint would grab hold and drag her back to the middle of the bed. “She eat?” he asked as he pulled her back for the second time.

“Think so,” Phil answered as he shrugged on a worn t-shirt from his Rangers days and a pair of sweatpants. “What do you want for dinner?”

“I made some chili while you were in meetings yesterday. It should be good by now.”

Phil fought an eye roll at Clint’s rule that chili had to set for a day before it could be eaten. He’d try to pass it off as some carnie rule, but Phil’d never known any other circus performers to verify the truth in the belief. 

The three of them moved out into the kitchen. Clint manned the stove as he reheated the spicy dinner, Phil leaned his hip against the counter, and Nadia began crawling laps around the kitchen island. “Think she’ll get tired before this is ready?” Phil asked.

“I’m not stupid enough to place any bets against the Romanoff stamina.”

Each time the girl passed Clint on her circular path, she’d reach over and slap the top of his boot and then crawl away squealing. On her third lap, Clint ducked down and quickly snatched her up into his arms. She squirmed and let out a yell for getting caught but after a few seconds settled on his hip. Just as her father predicted, her blue eyes locked onto the new toys in Clint’s ears and he was soon swatting at chubby fingers while angling his body so Nadia was kept away from the stove as he stirred the pot of chili.

“Here,” Phil said as he placed a hand on Clint’s unoccupied hip. “I know how to stir.”

Clint took a couple steps back as he caught both of Nadia’s hands in his own. He held them to his chest while placing a kiss in her red curls. The baby rested her head against his shoulder and managed to pull one hand free so she could suck her thumb. Clint chuckled and nuzzled his nose against her forehead.

Phil felt something snap inside of him at the sight. For an instant it felt like everything was back to normal, that the hell of the last few days was just some night terror and not a new way of life. He also felt irrationally jealous of an eight-month-old, because Nadia had no issue whatsoever with snuggling up against Clint, and he had no problem returning the sentiment.

Of their own volition, Phil’s fingers reached out to snag the hem of Clint’s t-shirt. Taking lead from Nadia, Phil pulled him close and rested his forehead against Clint’s. He felt his shoulders relax he breathed in familiar scents—Clint’s body wash, Nadia’s baby smell, the spiciness of chili from the stove. It all smelled like home, and Phil felt himself drowning in the comfort of it.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forever thanks to **the_wordbutler** for the beta, encouragement, and yelling at Phil.
> 
> I know nothing about firing guns or gun ranges, so if something is off on that respect, it is merely due to my ignorance. Apologies.

Natasha and Steve came to collect Nadia exactly two hours after she was dropped off. Clint walked her over to her parents and Steve instructed the baby to “give kisses. ” She grinned before planting one on Clint’s cheek and smiled even brighter when she pulled away. Clint tried to keep a polite face as he wiped the smear of spit from his cheek with the back of his hand. “Big fan of open mouthed kisses—you really are your mother’s clone.” Phil saw the faintest twitch at the corners of Steve’s mouth as he reached over to scoop Nadia into his arms. Clint must’ve saw it too since he commented, “Is this the day I’ve been waiting for since you two got together? Are you finally going to make fun of her with me?”

Steve shook his head as he told the men good night and walked away. Natasha called after him to let him know she’d follow in a few minutes. She waited until he was gone before she stood in front of Clint and stared him up and down.

“Imagining me naked?” Clint prodded. “Want to give me an open mouth kiss, too?”

“Been there, done that,” Natasha replied in a dry tone. “I have no need to go back to it again.”

“C’mon,” Clint said with a smirk, “you know we had some fun.”

Phil resisted his usual response of an eye roll to watch the pair carefully. The longer Natasha stared at Clint, the more it churned Phil’s stomach. When the woman shook her head ever so slightly, Phil felt his gut clench like he was awaiting the reading of a verdict. “Looks like you, talks like you, but still not quite you,” she commented.

He watched Clint’s shoulders fall slightly at the words, like he didn’t have to bother putting up a façade anymore and could deflate into his uneasiness. Her hands came up to rain nails through his hair. It was a move Phil’d watch her do countless times; what was initially a check for debris or shards of glass in his scalp quickly became a comforting gesture between the two of them, and Clint’s eyes slid shut at the contact. “Thanks for watching her,” she told him before slipping out of their quarters.

Clint remained still with his eyes closed even after she left. Phil easily read the lines of exhaustion in his face and body. He stepped over and wrapped a hand around Clint’s wrist. “Talk to me,” he ordered softly. The three words had been beaten into Clint so often that nine times out of ten it got him to spill his guts, even when not on a mission. But not tonight.

“Just tired,” he answered. “I know we need to talk, but I can’t right now. It’s been a long day and I just need to go to bed.”

Phil nodded before tightening his grasp and on Clint’s wrist and leading them towards the bedroom. Clint removed his hearing aids according to Tony and Bruce’s suggestions and fell asleep on his side facing away from Phil, per usual. Also, as was their nightly custom, Phil rested his hand on Clint’s hip as he fell asleep quickly on his back. 

It wasn’t the absence of Clint’s body under his hand that woke Phil two hours later; it was the sound of shouting from the shower. Phil shot out of bed and bolted for the bathroom. He slammed back the sliding glass door to the shower to find Clint curled up on himself, hands covering his ears, and yelling. He stopped when Phil grabbed hold of his elbow and looked up with an expression mixed with pain, fear, and embarrassment. Phil reached up and shut off the flow of water before sitting as close to Clint as he could on the floor of the shower.

“Talk to me,” he ordered loudly.

“My ears haven’t stopped ringing in five days. I couldn’t take it anymore. I was just trying to drown out the sound. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

Phil felt the chunk of guilt that’d been sitting in his gut for days expand in size. “Why didn’t you tell us?” he asked, raising his voice to be heard.

Clint shrugged. “They said it was to be expected.”

“If it was bothering you this badly, you should’ve told us.” Phil knew Clint didn’t quite understood what was said by the quick look of confusion on his face before he buried his face in his arm. 

Phil grabbed hold of Clint’s wrist and stood. Regardless of whether or not Clint continued to flinch away from his contact, Phil couldn’t wait any longer to do something. He would’ve attempted to pull Clint out of his pain before now, but it was hard to do that when Clint froze whenever he came near. He hoped Clint would forgive for him taking charge and getting physical with him now, because Phil was at a loss for what else to do.

He walked them out of the shower and gently toweled Clint off. The other man kept his eyes shut and chin to his chest the whole time. It wasn’t the first time Phil had done this before, not at all. Clint’d suffered enough injuries or come home too exhausted to do something like this for himself, and Phil didn’t mind helping out. Once Clint was dry, Phil led him back to the bedroom, and with a gently shove directed him towards the bed. 

“Agent Coulson, if I may,” JARVIS spoke into the dark room. “I was alerted to the situation because of Agent Barton’s distress,” the AI explained to show it hadn’t been eavesdropping and snooping when it shouldn’t have been. “I’ve sent some possible temporary remedies to your phone if you’re interested.”

“Thanks, JARVIS,” He replied as he quickly shucked his sopping wet shirt and shorts. He grabbed his phone and scanned the information before quickly pulling together a plan. Finding a set of earbuds and digging his old iPod out of the drawer of his nightstand, he climbed into bed after Clint. He handed Clint the earbuds and motioned him to put them in his ears before selecting a white noise track he played to fall asleep to from time to time. Phil slowly increased the volume until he saw the tension in Clint’s body ease slightly. No longer content to merely rest a hand on Clint’s hip, he pulled the man’s body flush against his with Clint’s back pressed to Phil’s chest.

Phil buried his face in the crook of Clint’s neck and tangled their legs up together. He stayed awake until he felt Clint go slack in his arms, and only then did Phil let himself fall asleep. He awoke hours later to the sun shining on his face and an empty bed. He remained still to listen to his surroundings, but couldn’t hear Clint banging around anywhere and didn’t smell any brewing coffee. Before he could climb out from under the sheets, he saw a yellow piece of paper on Clint’s pillow.

_Bed-Stuy. 24hrs._

Phil crumpled the note into his hand and had full intentions of chucking it across the room but couldn’t find the energy to make the throw. Instead his fist fell to rest on his forehead and he was left wondering what to do. Staying in bed for the next twenty-four hours until Clint was ready to be around him sounded like the most welcome option, but he knew it wasn’t a possibility.

His phone buzzed on the nightstand, and he swiped it open to read a text from Bruce alerting him that Clint’s new custom hearing aids were ready to be picked up in the lab. Phil clicked his brain over to what needed to be accomplished today and started with a shower. After suiting up in his Dolce and downing a mug of coffee, he travelled down to the scientists’ lair. 

“Here you go,” Tony greeted as he pointed to a pair of boxes on the table. “Made backups just in case something happens to the first pair. We’ll get started on some modifications to his equipment after we’ve slept. Or had more coffee. Where’s Barton? We were going to run some final specs on these things.”

Phil picked up one of the boxes and popped the lid to inspect the contents. The devices were colored to match Clint’s skin tone and from the looks of things would settle into his ear and be mostly invisible, a setup similar to an earwig. “He had business to attend to. You can run tests tomorrow.”

“We put in radio transceivers so that he can pick up comm channels with them,” Bruce went on to explain. “The modifications to his equipment will include things like putting something akin to closed captioning for comm chatter in his scope so he can read what’s being said in case these fail.”

“And what are you going to do for the ringing in his ears?” Phil asked as he rolled the hearing aid in between his index finger and thumb. 

“The tinnitus?” Bruce asked. “It should decrease on its own.”

“It’s not,” Phil shot back. He felt his temper snap and knew it shouldn’t be directed at the two men who’d just stayed up all night to create helpful equipment, but he was too exhausted emotionally to care where his ire was directed at the moment. “If he complained about it bothering him, you should’ve known it was bad. He walks around with broken bones because he doesn’t feel that kind of pain anymore. If he said something about this, then it’s serious.”

“We’ll see what we can do,” Tony tried to placate.

“White noise seemed to calm him down last night. Anyway you could project that into these?”

Bruce shook his head. “We could, but that’s just a bandaid. You need to actually fix the issue with sound therapy and—“

“Just do it.”

Phil’s order caused Tony to rise from the stool he was on to place himself between Phil and Bruce. “How ‘bout a _you’re welcome_ before you start in with another round of ass chewing? Because we didn’t have to do this.”

He knew he should apologize, but if he was going to admit fault for all of this, he didn’t want Stark to be the first person to whom he made his confession. “Have Natasha run these out to him in Brooklyn when you add in the white noise feature.”

“She’s out on mission,” Bruce said with a confused expression. “They tasked her at three this morning. Weren’t you notified?”

Phil didn’t have to check his phone to confirm that he hadn’t. “Then have Rogers do it, I don’t care.” He turned and stomped his exit. Once he was by himself in the elevator he scanned his inbox to confirm that he hadn’t received the general email the members of the Initiative received when one of them was tasked. The message contained the date the agent or asset departed and approximate return time. If he hadn’t received notification…

He tried to access Natasha’s file to see where she was sent and who was the senior agent overseeing things, but his access was blocked. The error code brought up a string of numbers that he recognized as his access being limited due to an approaching investigation.

He really should’ve stayed in bed.

Phil was sorely tempted to spend another day working from home, but with being locked out of certain files, it made most sense both from a network standpoint and a need to present good face for him to report to his office at headquarters. Once he reached his space, he shut the door behind him and setup a window in the top right corner of his computer monitor to display Clint’s location. The chip in the other man’s cell phone showed him exactly where he said he would be, not that Phil assumed he’d lied. He just wanted to keep tabs on Clint in some way.

Phil proceeded to work on paperwork for the next seven hours, which included signing off on forms for Clint’s field status to be revoked. He checked his calendar only to find that it had cleared up significantly; the sight was not a welcome one. No one came to bother him in that time. From what he could gather from the few files he was given access to, Sitwell was handling whatever mission Natasha was tasked with. And Maria, who’d demanded time with him upon her return from Moscow, was locked away in talks with Fury. He had a sinking suspicion that he was a topic of some of those conversations.

Tired of munching on whatever granola bars he could find in his desk—usually kept in reserve for Clint—he decided to head home for the day. He grabbed a few files on his way out of the office; there wasn’t anything left for him to work on, but he wanted to at least appear that there was. Phil gave one final look to confirm Clint was still in Brooklyn, which he was. The only time he’d left the apartment building was to get some food at the bodega on the corner. Or at least that’s what Phil assumed Clint was doing. Phil’d never step foot into the Bed-Stuy area. That was Clint’s territory, where he’d gone when he thought he’d lost Phil. It felt wrong encroaching on such a powerful place.

He walked the nearly twenty blocks from SHIELD headquarters back to Stark Tower, needing the time to try and settle his mind, but it wasn’t entirely helpful. He wondered what would happen to he and Clint if they were both booted from their jobs. Would they leave and go somewhere else? Would they ever settle in one spot and stay there? Would they ever be able to quit looking over their shoulders for trouble? Would they stay together?

That was the one that ate at him the most. He and Clint were good together, but in order to be together, you had to be willing to talk and look each other in the eye. When it came to their work, it wasn’t an issue. When it came to their relationship, that was something else entirely. Conflicts usually remained buried until something boiled over, and their traditional means of dealing with the problem involved sparring mats, yelling about everything but what needed talked about, sex, or some combination thereof. Phil’s body ached with tension and a desire for this current trouble to fall into one of the categories. 

He made his way into the apartment, setting files on the coffee table and tugging his tie loose in the process. The piece of blue silk and the dark gray suit jacket were draped across an armchair before he moved into the kitchen. Nothing in the refrigerator caught his attention as being particularly appetizing, so he settled on a bottle of beer and began sifting through takeout menus in his head.

Phil closed the refrigerator door and his heart lurched as it shut. At eye level was a photograph of Clint, Nadia, and himself. The picture was six months old and took place the previous Halloween when the baby was ten weeks. The Initiative’d volunteered to do some publicity in costume, sans Bruce who’d conveniently scheduled a retreat upstate. Since they were going to be out, Phil had volunteered to watch Nadia until her parents returned, with promises from Pepper to come join them once she finished work.

Phil’d been in the bedroom changing out of his suit when he’d heard the doorbell chime. Clint, dressed and ready for the evening, answered it and Phil heard a hoot of laughter before the archer called for him to come and see. Phil hastily threw on jeans and left on his white undershirt to inspect things. Standing at the door were Natasha, wearing the mother of all smirks, and Steve, who held a sleeping Nadia in his arms. The baby wore a miniaturized Dolce knock-off and had a name badge, hand drawn by Steve, clipped to the jacket.

"Congratulations, Phil," Clint grinned next to him as he wrapped an arm around his waist. "Captain America dressed his kid up as you for her first Halloween."

Phil ran an index finger gently over the image. He was smiling down at Nadia and Clint was beaming at him. He also remembered how later that evening Clint’d nuzzled his neck and hummed happily that babies looked and smelled good on him.

He quickly deposited the beer back into the refrigerator, pulled one of his sidearms from the gun safe in his office and beat it down to the weapons range below the gym. The upside to having a former weapons designer as a landlord was there was always plenty of ammunition and things to shoot. Out of habit, Phil donned his safety equipment consisting of protective eyewear and earmuffs, and once he had plenty of bullets within hands reach, he requested JARVIS to pull up a training sequence. Paper forms drifted in and out of his sight offering one target after another. He intently focused on lining up his sights, measuring his breaths, and monitoring his trigger squeeze; his aim was true despite the detritus attempting to weigh down his thoughts. And that was how Natasha found him on the range: lost in shooting, shirt cuffs rolled up to his elbows, and a faint sheen of sweat along his hairline.

She waited until he finished his current clip before sliding past him in the booth and perching herself on the counter in front of him. He tried to keep his eyes on reloading his weapon, but they flicked over to her and took note of the black eye she was sporting. “I’d ask how you got that,” he commented as he snapped the fresh clip into place, “but I’m pretty sure you’re not at liberty to tell me.” She remained silent and still as he put a round in the chamber and took aim. “Go put on muffs if you’re staying in here,” he ordered. But she just scooted herself to her right so that her ear was an inch away from the muzzle of his pistol; raising a red eyebrows in a silent challenge, she waited for his next move.

With a huff of disgust, he ejected the round from the chamber and released the clip from its hold before slamming the weapon down on the counter next to her. “Dammit, Natasha, what do you want?” he sighed as he pulled off his earmuffs and protective eyewear.

“For you to get your head out of your ass.”

“My head—“

“Is so full of what ifs, replays, and second guesses that you’re of no use,” she interrupted. “Now I can deal without having you as a handler—“

He snorted. “Then what do you call that?” he asked as he jerked his head in the direction of her injury.

Natasha smirked back. “Guaranteed massage in about an hour. And like I haven’t come home with worse when you were the one making the calls.” She rolled her eyes at how he flinched. “Listen, let me give you some advice.”

“Ten months in a sham of a marriage and you want to offer relationship advice?” he spat. “How cute.”

The tiny smile she gave him was a dangerous one, and he knew a warning when he saw it. “At least we know how to have a fight.”

“And judging from the number of times a week you drop Nadia off with us, you get plenty of practice.”

“Some of that’s for the make-up part, too,” she replied, her blue eyes gleaming.

It was Phil’s turn to roll his eyes. “What are your words of wisdom?”

She waited until she held his full attention before saying, “Quit treating him like he’s broken.”

The words were like a body blow, and he found himself reeling back physically. “I don’t treat him like that.”

“Phil—“

“I don’t treat him like that!” he repeated in a shout.

“You won’t go near him,” she replied as she began to tick her points off with manicured red nails. “You took Bruce and Tony’s heads off when they couldn’t find a magic wand to make everything better, you let him run off—“

“He won’t let me touch him,” Phil answered in a whisper. Natasha closed her mouth and tilted her head, waiting for him to elaborate. He sighed and ran a hand over his face. “Every time I try to do anything, he flinches. Do you know what it feels like to have the person you love duck away anytime you come close?”

“Do you know what it feels like to have the person you love immediately give up on you when you flinch?” she fired in return. “Go to him,” she instructed quietly after a minute as she hopped down from her spot and came to stand in front of him. “You’re the person he’s been in a relationship with the longest, and that includes a marriage. Don’t you dare abandon him. I’ve already pieced him together once; I won’t do it again.” She stared him down for a moment with deadly intent before repeating, “Get your head out of your ass.”

With that, she stalked away and silently exited the shooting range. Phil was grateful for that, both because he didn’t need for her to beat him down with words and also because he didn’t have a rebuttal to her order. She was right, and they both knew it. He dug the heels of his hands into his eyes as he contemplated his options: he could stay the night in the Tower and wait for Clint to return; it would be respectful of Clint’s privacy and the request he’d left of being alone for a day. Or Phil could travel out to Brooklyn and butt his way into Clint’s apartment, request for alone time be damned. 

Phil ran upstairs to the apartment long enough to grab his wallet and stash his weapon before exiting Stark Tower and heading for a subway station.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are not enough thanks in the word for my beta, **the_wordbutler**. She deserves them all.

Phil stared across the street at the building in front of him. He’d heard tales from Clint about the adventures relating to the Bed-Stuy residence, but he’d never set foot there himself. This was where Clint had gone to recover from losing Phil, and it felt odd encroaching on that, but he was tired of Clint pulling away from him. As he was about to step into the street, he heard a woman behind him issue the order, “Hey, Lucky, see the guy in the suit? Bite his balls off.”

He turned to see young woman—purple dress, black hair, and sun-kissed skin—and a one-eyed mutt. “Miss Bishop, I presume?” he asked as he extended his hand for the dog to sniff. Like any SHIELD agent worth his salt, he knew just how important of an ally a dog could be. The mutt, Lucky, took a hesitant sniff before lapping at Phil’s fingertips. Once he licked clean whatever pleasant taste he’d found there, he collapsed with a sigh at the young woman’s feet.

“Traitor,” she muttered.

Phil was somewhat familiar with the two of them. Bishop ran around from time to time with a team of supers who referred to themselves as the Young Avengers. She also went by the call sign of Hawkeye and was apparently almost as good of a shot as Clint. The two archers had formed a bond during the summer Phil played dead, but something happened between the two of them and Bishop had taken off for California three weeks before Phil returned to the Avengers.

All that was in the dog’s file was that Clint was listed as its owner, it was acquired from a Russian mob, and it liked pizza. Phil’s brain quickly took an inventory of the obvious injuries the dog had suffered, but the scars had done nothing to impede the animal’s sweet nature; it was easy to understand why Clint had taken the dog in.

“I thought you were spending your time out west?” Phil asked.

“My friend was hurt, so I came to see him and make sure he was okay,” Kate answered, her feelings of protectiveness evident in her voice. Phil kept his face passive, not wanting to show that her words felt like a finger poke to the sternum. “I thought you’d have been keener to that idea, being his handler and all.”

Phil gave her a tight, small smile. “I’ll make this simple: I’m not going to stand here and be lectured by some girl who doesn’t even know me.”

“I’m twenty, thank you very much,” she snidely corrected. He chuckled bitterly at the response. “Something funny?”

“Yes, the exorbitant amount of money I’d be willing to pay to never have to revisit my early twenties ever again.”

The expression in her blue eyes turned ice cold. “Besides,” she continued, “I don’t have to know you. I just have to know what he looks like when he feels that his strongest supporter has left him defenseless and alone.”  
Phil’s chin rose instinctively at the challenge; Kate’s jaw followed suit. “Have a good night, Miss Bishop.” He turned to resume his path to Clint and could feel the young woman roll her eyes at his back.

“C’mon, Lucky,” she said as she walked off, “let’s go check in to a ridiculously expensive hotel and charge it to Daddy’s credit card.”

Phil listened for a moment to the click of her heeled boots and the tinkling noise of the dog’s tags trail away. Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he opened a new text message to Natasha. _What do you know about Bishop?_

Her response was almost instantaneous. _Stubborn enough to handle Barton in large doses. Why? She threaten to kick some sense into you, too?_

Phil locked the screen and watched the device fade to darkness. He didn’t need to procrastinate by getting sucked into a conversation right now; Natasha would just yell at him again. And he’d already had enough of that kind of fun for one evening.

Slipping his phone in his pants pocket, he walked across the street. He took a steadying breath and entered the building. Phil knew from Clint’s file that his destination was apartment H, because subtlety was never Clint’s strong suit. He trudged up the stairs to the second highest floor, Clint’s apartment on the west side of the building facing the street. Phil expected to feel eyes on him as he approached, but never saw Clint’s shadow in the window. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

He knocked on the door and wondered if the noise was loud enough for Clint to hear, but the man must’ve still had his temporary hearing aids in. The door opened to reveal Clint with day-old stubble, greasy hair, and sporting a t-shirt with a purple bullseye and purple boxers. Phil figured this must be where Clint stashed all the sample marketing materials made for his Hawkeye persona. “Can I come in?”

Clint moved out of the doorway with a shrug. The inside of the living area was dark save for the glow of the TV, the DVR paused during an episode of _Dog Cops_. Empty beer bottles littered the floor around the couch, as well as a mostly-empty pot of coffee. On the counter were three opened bags of chips. “Sorry for the mess,” Clint murmured as he moved about to try and straighten things up.

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it.” Phil remained frozen just inside the door. He didn’t realize how much their apartment had become their home together—little touches everywhere representing the both of them—until he saw Clint living in a place completely devoid of Phil’s existence. He knew for a fact that getting shot in the gut hurt less.

“I said I’d be home in the morning.”

“I know,” Phil replied, hands rising in the air for a half-hearted surrender gesture. “But I—“

“Bring me the new hearing aids?”

“No. They’re done, but I forgot them.”

“Then wh—“

“I need you,” he breathed. “I fucked up, Clint. This is all my fault, both the part about your injury and why you feel like I’ve been pushing you away for the last five days.”

Clint shrugged and focused on his bare toes. “I’m not the guy you fell in… whatever with. Not anymore, and I can’t be again.”

Taking Natasha’s words to heart about being abundantly clear with Clint how much he cared, Phil crossed the distance between them in a heartbeat and firmly kissed him on the mouth. Clint tasted like hops and Doritos and it was only a moment before he was kissing Phil back with the same intensity. They broke apart gasping for air. “I don’t care if you can’t hear, can’t see, or can’t move. You’re still mine. You’re still Clint—Tasha’s best friend, Nadia’s godfather and favorite uncle, the greatest marksman ever seen, and _mine_. And I’m so sorry I made you feel less than that.”

“It’s my fault.”

“I gave the order. It was unclear and I messed up.”

“I knew what needed done,” Clint argued back. “Didn’t matter what your orders were; I still would’ve done it.”

Phil rested his forehead against Clint’s only feeling somewhat absolved for his transgressions. “I’m sorry that this was the result.”

Clint shrugged. “It’s me—can’t go through life without being a little broken somehow.” Phil pulled away and began looking around the apartment. “What are you looking for?”

“A flat surface or something to bend you over to show how much I don’t care about that.”

Clint smirked. “Whatever you say, boss.”

* * *

The next morning, Phil kissed and nipped his way up Clint’s stomach, the other man laying boneless beneath him. “For the record,” Clint said breathlessly, “still not blaming you for things, but you’re more than welcome to apologize or pity fuck me whenever you want.”

“That’s not what last night,” Phil argued against Clint’s sternum. “That just now was an apology, yes, but not last night. That was just me missing you.”

“Then you can miss me all you want.” 

Phil placed a final kiss to Clint’s shoulder before rolling out of bed. “What are the odds of the shower having hot water for more than two minutes?”

“Fair to poor, but the pressure is amazing.”

“I’d like to lodge a complaint with the building’s super if I end up with hypothermia.”

“The super’s a little busy feeling blissed out at the moment, but I’ll make your concern known.”

Miraculously, the shower lasted for seven minutes before turning frigid. It was just enough time for Phil to clean himself off and let the hot spray work out some of the pleasantly sore kinks from the night before. He walked out into the loft to find the bed empty, but there was a clean set of clothes laid out for him. All three items—t-shirt, boxers, and sweat pants—in some shade of purple and sporting bullseyes, arrows, or the letter H.

Voices drifted up into the loft from the kitchen below, and Phil easily placed them as Clint and Kate Bishop. Phil used his fingers to brush his wet hair into place before heading down the stairs. “If I’m going to wearing this much purple, I should at least get to hold one of your bows.”

Clint smirked over his shoulder at him from his spot on a stool. “Maybe you’re not the only one who likes to mark someone as ‘mine.’” Phil rolled his eyes but placed a quick kiss behind Clint’s ear nonetheless.

“Whoa… wait,” Kate said around a mouthful of donut. “You two are… more than asset and handler?”

“Oh, there’s plenty of handling,” Clint answered with a shit-eating grin.

“Gross,” Kate groaned.

“You didn’t tell her?” Phil asked.

Clint shrugged. “She’s been away since you came back, and before you… whatever… we weren’t really that much to write home about.”

“Plus,” Kate added, “I have absolutely no desire to think about him in any sexual way. Ever.”

Clint toasted her with the coffee pot. “Feeling’s mutual, girly.”

“But I thought you were into chicks,” Kate argued. “I mean there was Jess and Cherry and your _ex-wife_.”

With each new name, Clint’s grimace deepened. “Cherry?” Phil questioned. “Please tell me that wasn’t her actual name. I’ll even settle for a stripper moniker.”

Clint flipped him off. “Some chick I bought a car off of.”

“That I drove better than you,” Kate pointed out with her nose slightly in the air.

“Shut up. Why are you even here?”

“I brought you breakfast,” she countered.

“Well, he brought me orgasms,” Clint said while hooking his thumb in Phil’s direction. “I’d rather have him in my kitchen than you.”

“You still didn’t answer my question,” Kate prodded.

Clint sighed. “Some dudes like chicks, some dudes like dudes, some dudes like anyone willing to pay attention to them.”

“So has this been a thing for a while? Or just a friends-with-benefits situation?” Kate asked.

“We’ve been together for about a year and a half,” Phil answered at the same time Clint said, “Two years.”

Phil looked at him with surprise. “You count from before?”

“It was only two dates, but that’s twice as long as a lot of my relationships.”

“If we’re saying two years, then it sounds like we have some issues of cheating that need to be discussed.”

“To be fair,” Clint said in his defense, “we all thought you were very dead. I was just mourning you.”

“With your dick?” Kate questioned.

“Again: why are you here?” Clint demanded.

“Fine,” Kate huffed. “I’ll go. But I’m sticking around town for a few days in case you need me.”

“I don’t need a babysitter,” Clint argued.

“You’re right,” Kate agreed. “You need multiple babysitters.” It was her turn to receive a view of Clint’s middle finger, to which she rolled her eyes. “C’mon, Lucky, let’s get out of here.”

“Hey,” Clint called after the dog, “you remember how you’re actually mine, don’t you?” The mutt’s head turned back and forth between the two Hawkeyes before he slinked away after Kate. “Traitor,” Clint muttered.

“You okay?” Phil asked quietly once they’d left.

“I’m fine, Phil,” he half-whined. Phil was sure the tone of voice was due to Clint being asked that question a lot over the last five days.

“The ringing in your ears?”

Clint shrugged. “Still there.”

“Let’s go back home and see if the customized hearing aids Banner and Stark made you can help.”

“I’ll pay you money if you wear those clothes out in public back home.”

“You’re going to be sorely disappointed,” Phil replied.

“Or we could just stay here,” Clint offered quietly. “Unless you have to get to work.” Phil thought he’d kept his face clean of any tell, but he was apparently wrong. Only someone who knew him as well as Clint did could’ve been able to catch the quick flicker of emotion. “What’s going on?”

“I’m going to be put under investigation,” Phil admitted.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You had other things to deal with.”

“This is bullshit, Phil.”

He shrugged. “I cost SHIELD the ability to use one of the members of the Initiative. It has to be looked into.”

“When?”

“Don’t know. I’m locked out of files at the moment, but haven’t gotten a date.”

“I’ll testify on your behalf.” The five words ignited something warm deep in Phil’s belly and he took a shaky breath. Clint got up and walked over to him. “This is bullshit,” he repeated. “They can’t get you on anything.”

“I gave the order.”

“It was the right one to give. Otherwise you might’ve lost more than one Avenger.”

Phil’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “That mean you’re done?” he asked quietly.

“Kinda think I have to be. I don’t want to be a burden.” Phil swallowed the litany of arguments rising up in his throat and only nodded. “What’s the call?”

“What call is there to make?”

“Well,” Clint drawled, “we could stick around and wait for Fury to stupidly slap you on the wrist.”

“You mean fire me?”

“Or we could beat ‘em to the punch and run off.”

Phil gave a small grin at that. “Not like I haven’t thought about it, but we both know we’d be bored out of our minds once the box of condoms was empty.”

Clint shrugged. “So we go buy more condoms.”

Phil leaned in to kiss him with gratitude for that reply when his cell phone dinged at him. He stepped away to retrieve the device from where he’d left it on the kitchen counter the night before. 

“What is it?” Clint asked.

“Summons. My hearing’s at two this afternoon.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Greater than normal thanks goes to **the_wordbutler** and her excitement for this chapter. It, and she, led me to the piece this chapter needed so very badly.

Phil and Clint made it back to their floor of the Tower with enough time for Phil to shower and dress. He didn’t realize how late the pair of them had slept until he looked at his phone on the way out of the Bed-Stuy building and saw that it was nearly eleven in the morning.

By the time he emerged from the bedroom, suited and ready for legalistic battle, he discovered they had guests. Kate Bishop was standing with Clint, inspecting his stash of weaponry, and Lucky the dog was asleep on the rug in front of the couch. “Hey,” Phil greeted quietly. Both of the Hawkeyes turned at the same time, meaning Clint was able to hear him talk. Phil craned his neck to try and see which version of hearing aids Clint wore in his ears. “New ones?”

Clint nodded. “Fit better. Pretty much have the volumes where they should be, at least I think. Never really had to think about it before. White noise helps with the ringing, and they made it sensitive enough that it only makes that noise when there isn’t other sounds around me.”

“You need to see someone in psych about the tinnitus,” Kate instructed.

Clint rolled his eyes. “You go to California to be a med student?”

“No, I have access to Google.”

Phil swallowed the smirk that threatened to appear on his face. If he had to leave Clint alone, at least he would be with someone who cared about him—even if that care was demonstrated in sarcasm and name-calling.

They’d talked the entire way back to the Tower about whether or not Clint should join him at the hearing. Phil hadn’t heard Fury issue an invitation, and he didn’t want to skew any judgments with the fact that Clint was his partner. His other reasoning, which he refused to vocalize, was that he felt like he was just getting Clint back from the hell that was the last six days, and he didn’t want to force Clint to relive everything that had happened and be questioned about it for hours.

Phil tightened the knot of his tie as he crossed the floor to give a goodbye kiss to Clint. “Behave. Both of you.” They both saluted simultaneously with equal amounts of sarcasm, and Phil couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “I don’t know when this will be over.”

“I’ll have dinner waiting for you whenever that is,” Clint assured him. “I’m supposed to go hang out with the scientists in a few minutes so they can poke and prod me.”

“Is that supposed to sound sexual?” Kate asked.

“Only if you want it to,” Clint answered.

Phil looked him over one last time. “You sure you’ll be okay?”

He nodded. “I’ve got Katie-Kate watching my back. I’ll be fine.”

“Okay. I’ll text you when I leave headquarters.”

With that, Phil made his way down the parking garage to secure one of the endless black sedans stored there. Traffic was as kind as it was going to be for a weekday afternoon, and he made decent time heading south to headquarters. When he arrived, Fury and Hill were waiting for him in Fury’s office.

Assistant Director Hill was dressed in her traditional Senate hearing garb: navy blouse and gray pencil skirt. It kept true to SHIELD colors, but was less intimidating. She once told Phil that she found it to be more effective than her military-style jumpsuit when asking “old, white men to leave us the hell alone and let us do our jobs.” 

“You ready?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I’m not really sure how I was supposed to prepare for it, but sure.”

She stared him down. “Don’t fall on your sword,” she ordered in a quiet yet authoritative tone. “I know you, and I know how you feel about him. Don’t take the blame if it’s not yours. This organization needs you more than you need to feel guilty. If I have to order you to put yourself in the best light, which I shouldn’t have to do at all, then I will.”

“It’s cute, you know,” Phil commented with a small smirk.

Maria sent him a sharp look. “What’s cute?”

“You trying to act all superior when in actuality you’re young enough to be my daughter.”

She rolled her eyes, and ignored her boss’s chuckle. “Please stop bringing that up; it’s disturbing on so many levels.”

“Enough, both of you,” Fury ordered, his tone now in its usual business mode. He kept his eye locked on the tablet in his hand as he took a quick swig from his mug. “She does have a point, Phil. I spent too much money bringing you back from the dead. I’m not going to have you piss all that away just so you can beat yourself up further about your boy toy.” He turned his attention to his assistant director. “You better go. Don’t need you to miss your flight for tonight’s meeting.”

Maria gave a quick nod and final look at Phil. She raised both her eyebrows in a silent question to see if he’d be alright. He easily recognized the concern there as a friend, but also the power silently ordering him not to screw things over for himself. It was quite easy to see why she was already Fury’s right hand by the time she was twenty-eight—and also easy for Phil to remember why he considered her one of his friends.

Phil nodded his answer and she slipped out of the office. Once she was gone, Fury rose from his desk. “Let’s go,” he ordered, and Phil has no choice but to follow his boss’s swirling leather trench coat. He followed Fury through a series of twists in the corridor, not really bothering keeping track of where they were going.

Phil sat in on a few inquiries in the past, but he was positive they wouldn’t compare to this. Fury informed him on the way that there wouldn’t be any witnesses present to testify on his behalf. The director himself would be as much of a defender as Phil would be allowed. There would be a rehashing of events and the members of The World Security Council would question him. Then he would be dismissed while they ruminated and decided his fate.

The door he and Fury finally walked through opened into a large room. Like most of the spaces in headquarters, décor was minimal. There was a sleek, black conference table in the center of the room. It was large enough for both Phil and Fury to sit at the foot of it. Other chairs were replaced with holographic screens; there were eight in total, and each displayed a silhouetted figure. Their shadowed presence did nothing to quell the anxiety rolling in Phil’s stomach.

“Let’s begin,” the voice closest to Phil’s right announced. “Agent Phillip Coulson, you are being investigated for neglect in your duties. At this hearing, we will review the events of six days ago, read through written accounts of what happened, and discuss penalties for your neglect.”

“If,” Fury muttered.

“Pardon me, Director?” the shadowed voice asked.

“We’ll discuss penalties _if_ he is found to have neglected his duties.” Fury elaborated. He was leaning back in his chair and gave the air of boredom, as if this was nothing more than a budget meeting. “Unless we’ve become as truly awful as people think we are as an organization and have completely skipped over hearing people out before deciding their fate.”

Phil could think of a time or two when SHIELD had fallen exactly into that category, but didn’t think right then was the greatest time to point it out.

“Gentlemen,” the voice on Phil’s immediate left—a female—interrupted. “Let’s not lose our focus.”

“Right,” Fury drawled. “Your focus here is to burn one of my best agents at the stake.” The verbal provocation caused half of the shadowed faces to start talking over each other. It took a full minute for the chaos to settle, all while Fury hid a grin behind his coffee mug. There were times where Phil kind of hated his boss’s guts.

Once everything was back in order, the first voice that had spoken began again. “We’re here to investigate the actions of Agent Coulson in the recent attack that left Hawkeye with enough damage to his ears that his status as an active field agent was revoked. We will also be discussing candidates to fill his position in the Initiative.”

Fury held up a hand to interrupt. “For the record, Hawkeye still has the option to remain an active part of the Avengers. He just won’t be allowed to run solo or team missions for SHIELD anymore.”

Phil could practically feel the skeptical expressions bleed off of the monitors around the table. “If he can’t perform on missions, how is he supposed to be an effective team member?” a voice halfway down the table asked.

Fury shrugged. “The rest of his team wants him there. And despite what I tell and outright order them to do, they pretty much do as they damn well please.”

“Wonder where they learned that from,” one of the Council members muttered. Phil was pretty sure Fury clinched his hands into fists to prevent an appearance of middle fingers.

“They also will be supremely unhappy if they lose their handler,” Fury warned before hooking a thumb in Phil’s direction. “This man united them in the first place, and even death couldn’t keep him away from his job. You really think you all have a chance?”

They apparently did. The next four hours was spent with Phil giving his account of what went down and Clint’s progress since the incident. Next on the agenda was to once again grill Phil on his memory of the orders he gave. Then they played the recording of the comm transmissions; that made Phil feel slightly sick to his stomach, and he was forced once more to fight to keep emotions from appearing on his face.

After that, Council members took turns reading reports from each member of the Initiative, as well as several other SHIELD agents who were on the scene. Natasha’s was blunt and to the point, but all the honesty set up a sense of truth when she pointed out that no one should be blamed for what happened. Tony’s was full of his usual verbal diarrhea, but was also peppered with back-handed compliments for Phil’s service. Bruce’s didn’t say much, just mentioned Phil’s devotion in getting Clint back into the field. Thor, in his lofty language, praised the courage of both Phil and Clint for making sacrifices necessary to protect the people of Earth. Steve’s, perfunctory as any good soldier’s would be, echoed Thor’s thoughts of duty, sacrifice, and following through on necessary action. 

And then came Clint’s report. Phil didn’t even know he’d made one. There were so many tests and with Clint being unconscious after the whole thing happened, Phil was unaware someone had come to take a statement. He had to fold his hands in his lap to keep from drumming his fingers on the polished surface of the table, and he did his very best to keep his face neutral despite his stomach threatening to sour on him. Despite him and Clint mostly making amends last night, the statement could’ve been from before. And if Clint had directed his hurt, fear, and anger at his hearing loss at Phil, it would’ve been deserved.

The report gave a recounting of the events of the battle. All of the statements were fuzzy due to the nature of the attack, but Clint apparently remembered the final order and shot with crystal clarity. “I knew what was needed,” the voice at the end of the table read. “Agent Coulson pointed out a possible solution using a sonic arrow, but the tip of that arrow isn’t meant to do serious damage to a person. It’s more a sound effect than anything; obviously a sound effect that can do some damage, but still.” As the words continued, Phil couldn’t help but hear Clint’s voice instead of the mystery man on the other side of the room. “I needed to fire the sonic arrow and put this guy down, but I knew I didn’t have a lot of time. And with my mind buzzing, I didn’t trust myself to make a shot involving two arrows at once. So I kept the sonic in my mouth, and released the standard arrow into the guy’s shoulder—nothing fatal, just enough to put him down for a minute—when the sonic went off. I did that. I knew the risks, I took them anyway.”

Phil swallowed down a gulp of water to give himself a minute after listening to those words. Even though Clint had offered that morning to defend him, to actually hear the words choked him up. He cleared his throat roughly and Fury shot him a side look. Phil gave a small nod to let him know it was okay to continue.

After four hours of going through everyone’s statements, the Council announced that they would then like to discuss replacements for Clint’s position on the team; after that, they’d meet privately to decide Phil’s fate. But Fury had other plans. “Some of us have real work to do, so here’s what’s going to actually happen. We—” He paused to wave a hand between himself and Phil. “—are going to go back to work. You all do whatever you think is best, and when you’re done, I’ll decide if I’m willing to follow your guidance.” He punched a button on the table and the screens went into stand-by mode. 

Phil raised his eyebrows at him. “You keep pulling stunts like that, they’ll force you out of your job and replace you with Maria.”

Fury huffed a chuckle. “Like Hill would be stupid enough to take my job. And like she’d play any nicer with those assholes.” He stood from the table and looked down at Phil for a moment, a calculating stare with one eye that never failed to make the muscles in Phil’s back tighten. “Go home. I’ll call you when they come back with something.”

“You mentioned something about getting back to work?” Fury raised an eyebrow as a silent request for Phil to continue. “I’ve been locked out of files I need because of the hearing. When do you think that can be lifted?”

“Depends,” Fury answered. “Have you and yours had an actual adult conversation about what’s happened?”

Phil was fairly certain that his boss wouldn’t count a few days of avoiding things followed by an apology and greedy sex to count as an _adult conversation_. “Of course,” he answered anyway.

“Bullshit.”

“Your evidence being?”

“Is Barton coming back to the Avengers?” Phil opened his mouth to answer before he remembered he didn’t really know what that answer was. “Exactly,” Fury said. “Talk to your man, then we’ll talk about your job.”

“And what if the World Security Council decides I shouldn’t have my job anymore?” Phil asked quietly.

“Did you not hear me say I don’t give a shit what they think?” Fury replied. “Now get out of here.”

Phil stood and hesitated. A weight he didn’t realize he’d been carrying fell off of his shoulders at Fury’s promise to keep him on as an agent. It didn’t eliminate all the stress he was burdened with, but it helped. He stretched his hand out to Fury and the Director looked at it for a moment before shaking it. “Thank you, sir,” Phil said, “for everything.”

“Go home, Phil,” Fury repeated as a dismissal.

He nodded, gathered his things, and made his way out of the maze of corridors.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter after this one, folks. Thanks for sticking with me on this and sorry this update is a couple of days late.
> 
> Thank you, **the_wordbutler** , for continually pushing and prodding (in an encouraging way) until I write some words.

“Clint?” Phil called out as he entered their floor in Stark Tower.

“Kitchen,” the other man answered.

Phil dropped his stack of files onto the small table in the entryway and quickly toed off his shoes. By the time he made it the short distance to the kitchen, his tie was loose and his jacked was half off. He removed if fully and draped it on a clean section of the marble counter and dropped his tie on top of it. Not until then did he get a good look at Clint.

His hair was damp from a recent shower, he wore a thread-bare gray t-shirt and ratty jeans, and he stood barefoot at the stove. A spicy aroma filled the air, and Phil took a sniff at the simmering sauce. All of it—the smells and sights—comprised the definition Phil’d quietly and finally let himself accept as home. He was awash in gratitude that after the last ten days that definition still held true. He grabbed Clint by the back of the neck and pulled him in for a kiss. Phil tried his best to convey all he could in the contact—gratitude for Clint still being around, humbled appreciation for the words Clint had written in Phil’s defense, an apology that he couldn’t magic wand everything back to the way it was two weeks ago. Clint stepped into the kiss and pressed himself flush against the length of Phil’s body. Fingers and lips quickly grew needy and frenzied, causing Phil to take a step back with a gasp. Clint leaned into the newly empty space to follow, and Phil took another retreating step while raising his hands.

It wasn’t hard to miss the way Clint wet his lips or how his pupils were blown wide open, but that would have to wait; Phil had orders to follow. “We need to talk,” he announced. “We need to have the conversation we’ve been avoiding.”

Clint still sounded a little breathless when he responded, “Maybe not the best way to start a serious conversation. Pretty distracting, boss.”

Phil nodded. “I know, sorry. And I definitely want to revisit that thought later, but it’s time we talked.”

“I know,” Clint said softly as he replaced the lid on the curry he’d been stirring. He looked back at Phil and shrugged. “Where do you wanna start?”

“First,” Phil said as he moved around Clint to pull a bottle of water from the fridge, “I want to say thank you. Your report—“ He paused, his mouth still working but no sound coming out since he couldn’t find adequate words to express his gratitude. He tried to cover up the loss with taking a sip from the bottle of water. The appearance of faint laugh lines around Clint’s eyes proved he wasn’t successful with his charade.

“I told you I’d speak on your behalf,” Clint said.

“As long as it was the truth and not just you trying to save my job.”

Clint rolled his eyes. “How many times do I have to say this was my own damn fault before you start believing me?”

Phil raised his hands in defense before setting his water bottle down. “Still, it was nice to hear. That’s all I’m saying.”

“You still have a job?” Clint asked hesitantly.

Phil gave a small shrug. “Fury said he’d keep me on regardless of what the World Security Council decided.”

“Nice for the Director to make a smart move like that and keep you around.”

“What about you?” Phil asked.

“I thought we already established I’m keeping you around, too.”

Phil shoved his hands in his pockets to keep from dragging Clint to him once more. “I was referring to your place on the team.”

Clint ran a hand over his face before saying, “I told you I was done.”

“I know,” Phil gently replied. “But that was a few days ago. You’ve had time to think; Banner and Stark have created new equipment for you.”

He stared back at the stove for a second, and Phil could see Clint play out scenarios in his head, calculate outcomes. “I’d still be a burden.”

“Says who?”

Clint rolled his eyes. “C’mon, Phil. I’m—“

“Incapable of hearing noises at a volume equal to or less than a conversation. You didn’t lose a limb, you aren’t mentally weakened, you’re not blind. And even if you were, that still wouldn’t be a hindrance—at least, not according to the SHIELD database. 

Clint snorted. “Murdock’s a freak. Don’t ever compare me to him.”

“He’s still out there and doing work,” Phil argued. “I know you haven’t had that much time to adjust, that you’re still getting used to everything, and that’s fine. Just know that if anyone is capable of jumping over yet another hurdle to keep their place in the Initiative, it’s you.”

Clint’s eyes dropped to his toes and he muttered, “I’ll think about it.”

Phil crowded into his space and stood still until Clint looked up to meet his eyes. “If you do this—and it really is okay if you don’t—it has to be because you want it. Not because of the other members of the team, not because of Natasha, and certainly not because of me. Because I couldn’t live with myself if I knew I made you do something you resented.”

“You sure my entire history with SHIELD doesn’t fall into that category?” Clint snarked with sparkling eyes.

* * *

Training started the following morning. First up for Clint was sparring with Captain Rogers. Phil paced laps around the boxing ring while Clint—sans hearing aids—and Steve went round after round. To increase difficulty, JARVIS varied the level of light in the gym with each match. Phil listened to the sound of hits and grunts in near darkness when his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. The glare of the screen was harsh in the darkened gym. 

Phil squinted against the light as he pulled up the email that’d just arrived into his inbox. The message was a forward from Director Fury. The caption read _Mark the date and time. WSC finally made a right call._ Phil scrolled down in the message to skim a report clearing Phil of any issues from the incident and how he would remain as the handler for the Initiative. He exited out of the email and went searching for a file or two in the database that he knew he’d been blocked from due to the investigation; the paperwork in question pulled up without any issue. He closed his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief; he didn’t realize how much of a weight this had been on him till it lifted.

He was brought out of his reverie by the sound of a body hitting the mat with force. “JARVIS, lights,” Phil ordered. Steve stood over Clint, who was gasping for air on his back, and shot an apologetic look to Phil. 

“He told me not to go easy,” Steve said with a small shrug. He still sported a few marks, but nothing compared to the bruises Phil was sure Clint would be showing by evening.

Phil waved him off. “We’ll say two hours of beating is enough for now. Thank you, Captain.” Steve nodded before kneeling down before Clint. JARVIS, in an effort to help Clint read lips, was now under the instruction to provide closed captioning whenever someone spoke. Light aqua words hung in the air in front of the speaker’s nose whenever they talked to Clint. Phil turned and pretended to check his phone for new messages so as not to eavesdrop—or rather eavesread—while Steve spoke his words of encouragement.

Phil checked his schedule and was grateful to see that Fury had allowed his time to be dedicated to Clint’s training. He certainly hoped that Clint was honestly willing to put himself through all of this because he wanted to. That was what Clint had said when they’d discussed the matter again in bed late last night. Phil was fairly certain Clint was being honest about it.

The pair of them went back to their quarters. Once Clint ran through the shower, Natasha showed up with Nadia on her hip. Without any explanation, she pulled out the high chair Phil and Clint had tucked into the corner of their dining room. Once Nadia was strapped in, Natasha motioned for Clint to sit in a chair next to Nadia. Phil sat at the opposite end of the table catching up on paperwork, but still kept part of his focus on the others in the room.

“What are you doing?” Clint asked.

“Sign language lesson. I figured if I started out with food you’d be more interested.” She turned her attention back to Nadia but Phil watched her make sure Clint was paying attention. “Nadia, do you want something to eat?” She paused to tap her fingertips to her mouth before she motioned tilting a cup to her lips. “Or do you want something to drink?” Nadia answered by humming and smacking her hands against the tray of the high chair. “No, you have to tell me,” Natasha said before she repeated the question with the appropriate signs. Nadia opened and closed her chubby fingers in and out of a fist in the air, and Phil saw a small smile cross Natasha’s lips. “That answers the question of whether or not you want milk or water,” she said before depositing a sippy cup of milk onto the tray of the high chair.

While Nadia downed her drink, Clint eyed Natasha. “You learn this stuff for her?”

“No,” Natasha answered, her fingers dancing nimbly through the air as she spoke. “I don’t remember ever learning how to sign, which means it was probably programmed into my head. The powers that be either forgot it was in there or saw it as a useful tool and just never bothered to take it out.”

Phil felt his stomach sour slightly at her words. He knew that ASL was listed in the number of languages Natasha spoke fluently, but he never asked how she came about learning it. He didn’t like being reminded of how her previous superiors saw her as nothing more than a programmable killing machine.

Natasha stayed for an hour to teach Clint some basic signs while feeding Nadia her lunch, but soon it was time for the eight-month-old’s afternoon nap. After they left, Tony and Bruce requested Clint come down to practice with his new equipment. Clint waved off Phil’s offer to accompany him. 

“They want to test you two weeks from today with the team to see if you’re eligible to come back to the Initiative,” Phil said before Clint left. “Just got the email. Think you’ll be ready? Or do you want me to push it back?”

Clint stared into space for a moment and Phil watched subtle shifts in his face as options were weighed. “Keep it,” Clint answered. “If we get closer and I’m not ready, then we’ll move it.”

Phil stayed in his office while working on getting caught up on his paperwork. Every hour, he received updates via text from Clint, most of them complaining about how Tony wanted to give him a full-on Heads Up Display like the engineer had within his helmet, but all of it was too distracting for Clint who wanted to see things and make calculations on his own, and not have some graphics display do it for him.

After five hours in the lab, Clint texted that Thor was taking him out to dinner. _Prolly to some place the rest of you wusses wouldn’t touch._ Phil chuckled to himself. Thor and Clint had a perverse habit of eating anywhere that offered food regardless of what health inspectors thought about the establishments.

Phil was also glad at the way the team had stepped up together to help Clint. Steve’d already set up a sparring and physical training schedule. Tony and Bruce had already worked endlessly to help Clint along with any technology within reach. Natasha had aided him in teaching him sign language and reviewing pointers on how to read lips. Thor, it seemed, would be in charge of making sure Clint had someone to open up to about what he was experiencing. 

Phil was grateful for their assistance, especially Thor’s. Clint, like most SHIELD agents, hated going to psych. And the team seemed determined to not let Phil burden himself with getting Clint back on his feet. He was simply there to be whatever Clint needed him to be, and that was one of the kindest things they could’ve ever done for Phil.

It was after ten by the time Clint got home. He moved stiffly, most likely from this morning’s sparring, and his smile was an easy one of fading intoxication. “Hey,” he greeted.

“Hello,” Phil replied. He’d already changed into a t-shirt and sleep pants, and he removed his glasses before setting the report he was reading on to the coffee table. “How was dinner?”

Clint moaned as he sank on to the couch next to Phil. “I have no idea what we ate. Thor just kept ordering stuff in a language I didn’t understand, but it was amazing.”

“Same plan for tomorrow?”

Clint shook his head. “Kate’s flying back to California tomorrow evening, so she wants to go shooting with me in the morning. We’ll use the range downstairs for a few hours.”

“She really going to leave you before you do your tests?”

Clint shrugged. “She said I was in good hands. Honestly, I think she’s just pissed that she isn’t getting bumped up to the real Avengers yet.”

Phil rolled his eyes. “There’s no way I’m letting someone who isn’t old enough to buy alcohol into the Initiative.”

“Or near Tony?” Clint joked.

“I think Miss Bishop could hold her own there. Can you imagine what things would be like if she bonded with Pepper?”

“The two of them taking over the world in stilettos and designer clothes in no time flat.”

Phil smiled at the thought. “As long as they show us mercy, I’d be fine with that.”

“I’m sure Pepper would keep an eye out for you. Kate might turn me into some court jester or something.”

He chuckled at that before really looking over Clint. “You okay?”

Clint shrugged. “My head’s still a bit of a mess, but that’s not anything new. I’ll get there. It’s just a lot to take in still.”

Phil nodded. “If there’s anything—“

“I know.” Clint leaned over to kiss the corner of his mouth. “Thank you,” he breathed against Phil’s cheek.

“For what?”

“For always sticking by me. For seeing me as more than just a good shot.” Before Phil could reply, Clint covered his lips in a kiss, and in short time, they were in the frenzied heat they’d started when Phil got home from his trial the day before.

After a while of making out like two teenagers, Clint climbed off of Phil, nodded towards the bedroom, and tapped his fingertips together in front of his chest. Phil shook his head as he momentarily tried to redirect some blood flow. “I don’t remember that particular sign from this afternoon.”

“More,” Clint said.

Phil groaned. “And now every time our niece asks for seconds, I’m going to be thinking about you and sex.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot give enough thanks to **the_wordbutler**. I hit a wall when finding motivation to write this story around chapter three and never really recovered from it. Her encouragement kept me going to finish this story. She's listened to me whine and moan about this far more than necessary. She's the best.

Two weeks after the team began to offer Clint specialized training, he field tested. Phil was kept away from the practice arena that’d been set up for the event; he was forced to wait back at the Tower by himself. Phil knew that Clint would be put in a number of scenarios, all without use of his hearing aids. He’d test with the other members of the Initiative to make things as realistic as possible. With nothing better to do than wait, Phil told Darcy to take the morning off and took over care of Nadia for a few hours. Fury wouldn’t even let Phil into Headquarters while the test was happening, and Phil wondered just who all was being examined.

Phil distracted himself with his nearly nine-month-old niece. He read her stories, dodged pureed food while feeding her breakfast, and took the opportunity to practice the few signs he knew with her. When her parents returned, the baby was dozing against his chest for her morning nap. Steve motioned to take her and put her in her crib, but Phil waved him off. “How’d it go?” he asked.

Steve shrugged. “I thought it went alright. They still have to debrief him and run a few tests. Fury said you could come over at two.”

Phil nodded before turning to Natasha. “And now that we’ve heard the optimist’s opinion, what do you think?”

Natasha rolled her lips as she sunk into an armchair. “He stumbled a few times without his hearing aids, and since he doesn’t always look through his scope, there was some overlap in comm chatter that was a little confusing.” She shrugged. “I think they’ll overlook it and let him through.”

It wasn’t the response he’d hoped for her, but Natasha wouldn’t sugar-coat things. If anything, she’d be a hundred times harder about how Clint did than anyone else. If she thought Clint had at least a chance, he would probably be fine. Most likely.

It did nothing to help his nerves. Not even Nadia, snoring gently and fisting his dress shirt in her chubby hands, was distracting enough to calm him down. He struggled through polite chatter with Natasha and Steve about surface topics. He turned down their offer to stay for lunch, and apologized for his tie leaving an impression on Nadia’s cheek when she woke from her nap. He passed the baby back to her mother and ignored Natasha staring him down before he escaped their floor of the Tower.

He took the scenic route and walked downtown to SHIELD Headquarters. By the time he arrived, he still had ninety minutes to kill before Natasha said Clint would be finished. Phil made his way to the cafeteria and considered eating there, especially when he saw Jasper, Kate McCoy, and Doctor Nancy McClellan—the king and queens of the cafeteria in their own minds—holding court in one corner, but he didn’t want to sour their happy mood. He grabbed a banana and a sandwich and made his way back to his office.

Phil felt physically strained for avoiding clocks once he was settled behind his desk. He worked on the most basic paperwork he could find—purchase orders for office supplies—for fear of screwing up forms in his distracted state. Not soon enough, there was a quick knock at the door and then Clint was entering his office. Per usual, the archer collapsed onto the leather couch with a sigh. His head fell back to rest on the back of the couch and his eyes remained shut. Phil’s mind began to make a list of all the things he could do as a reaction, some more appropriate for the office than others. He chose to sit next to Clint on the couch and to rest a hand on the man’s thigh. When Phil looked to his left to study his asset, he noted several things: the presence of hearing aids in his ears, the tightness of his jaw, and the lines of exhaustion on his face.

“Here,” Clint said as he handed over a sealed envelope. “You read it.”

“What is it?”

Clint opened his eyes only so he could roll them. “My latest series of fan letters. What do you think it is?”

Phil looked at him with confusion. “They didn’t tell you?”

Clint shook his head. “Fury said he put his call into the report. Told me not to bother opening it unless I was serious about coming back.”

“Are you?” Phil asked. They’d had the discussion a number of times, but Clint’s answer had always seemed flimsy at best.

Clint sighed. “Part of me could walk away. I’m tired of bandages and getting the shit beat out of me. But then I’d worry about who’s going to keep an eye on Tasha and you if I’m not there.”

“Tasha has a husband to do that.”

“You don’t,” Clint argued.

Phil’s eyebrows rose. “If this is your way to propose marriage—“

“No,” Clint said as he shook his head and barely contained a shudder. “Definitely not.” He paused and his eyes went a little wide as he realized what he was saying. “I mean, it’s not that I wouldn’t marry you, it’s just that—“

“I was joking,” Phil interrupted as a means of hopefully putting the topic to rest, because that was a hornet’s nest that needed poked some other day. “You really want to know?” he asked as he reached for the envelope still in Clint’s clutches. “Because you don’t have to. You can quit now.”

He watched Clint’s Adam’s apple bob while he ran through his options. “Open it,” he answered quietly.

Phil made quick work of the envelope thanks to one of the knives that was always on his person. He unfolded the letter and was curious but not at all surprised to see only one sentence scrawled in Fury’s distinct penmanship.

 _Of course he can keep his damn spot_.

* * *

Clint’s first time out with the Avengers since losing most of his hearing took place in early May. Thankfully everyone was able to ease into things since the battle was against a robot that had a barely -charged battery and couldn’t put up much of a fight. Once everything was safe, Tony tracked down the machine’s inventor to lecture him for the insult against engineers everywhere.

The team adjusted as quickly as they could. Battles as the Avengers weren’t where Clint, Phil, and those around them needed to do much adjusting, it was the solo missions that were more difficult. Phil didn’t realize just how much Clint was assigned things until he couldn’t be tasked a mission anymore. That left other agents, including Steve, to fill in. But the issue there was neither Natasha nor Steve liked being on missions together; they wanted at least one parent at home with Nadia. But there were times when there wasn’t much of a choice. Phil did his best to make sure it only happened once every six weeks or so and that the missions never took longer than a few days. He could see the guilt clouding Clint’s eyes whenever that happened; he tried to pay his penance to the couple by taking care of Nadia whenever they were gone. Phil skipped out on serving as lead agent on a lot of missions in the first few weeks after Clint returned to the Avengers, but Clint told him he didn’t need a babysitter and to get back into the swing of things already.

The first real test happened in mid-June when the drones reappeared. The weapons designed by aliens in some far corner of the galaxy had first appeared a year ago in May. Thor had traveled back to Asgard to learn that the aliens producing the drones saw the Avengers as the best test for the merchandise and would send new designs to Earth whenever they were ready for market. This marked the fourth time in thirteen months that the drones appeared. They never harmed any citizens, and never engaged until a member of the Initiative arrived on the scene. But even though they weren’t a threat to the majority of Earth’s inhabitants, Phil did not appreciate that their alien designers seemed hell-bent on taking out his team.

Phil, Jasper, and a number of other agents were stationed a couple blocks away when the drones portaled onto Seventh Avenue, but it quickly became apparent that the latest designs packed a heavier punch than normal. As a result, supporting agents were ordered to move out of the area as reinforcements from the X-Men were dispatched in their place.

At the moment, Jasper and Phil sat in the street with their backs against a taxi that’d been abandoned in the chaos. The superheroes had managed to drive the drones out toward the water, and the pair of agents could hear faint gunfire and feel booms as explosives went off. Phil’s fingers drummed an incoherent rhythm on the asphalt and Jasper gave him a quick side glance, but nothing more. They both hated being out of the loop, being stuck in the dark when there was action around them, but at the moment, neither had a choice. An EMP had knocked out comms twenty minutes ago—and by now you’d think SHIELD would’ve come up with a workaround for that kind of thing, but not yet—and all the non-superhero agents were ordered away from the battlefield. 

All Phil could do was sit and wonder how isolated Clint felt at the moment. Because if an EMP had gone off, it would’ve taken out his new gear made by Tony and Bruce, including his hearing aids. The team had practiced for a situation like this, but practice and reality were two very different things.

“He’s fine,” Jasper reassured. “Don’t get your panties in a wad.”

Phil turned his head to glare, but they both caught movement from the building in front of them. Three men in their twenties, video equipment in hand, darted out from the alley to make their way towards the fight. Jasper yelled at them to get their attention and Phil ordered them back inside. None of them moved until Jasper grabbed the shotgun resting at his side and Phil flashed his badge. “Thank you for your cooperation,” he shouted at the retreating figures.

The men sat in the streets making idle conversation to kill time until Phil’s mental clock noted it’d been a few minutes since he’d heard an explosion. To further confirm things had come to an end, an indigo vortex came down from the sky and withdrew a few seconds later—telltale sign of the drone being collected and taken back to their point of origin. When the portal disappeared into the sky, their comms came back up leaving Phil to wonder if the technological glitch had actually been caused by an EMP or if the drones now came with dampeners to combat SHIELD tech. 

Tony said that he had Phil and Jasper’s location and that he, with Thor, were inbound to pick them up and fly them to rendezvous with the rest of the team. “I call Thor,” Jasper said. “Stark always acts like he’s going to drop me, which is not amusing when you’re fifty stories in the air.”

A few minutes later, their feet touched surface streets once again. Phil looked around, but couldn’t immediately find Clint. Steve caught his eye and nodded toward the mouth of an alley. Tucked away just inside Natasha was kneeling in front of Clint. Phil’s mouth went dry as a hundred horrible scenarios played out in his mind during the five seconds it took to run to their location.

“He’s fine,” Natasha said when he was close enough. “Just a little shaken. I’m going to go get more bandages.”

Phil nodded as he took her place to sit in front of Clint. There was a nasty gash running the length of his left bicep; it was the only one Natasha hadn’t taken care of yet. He already sported bandages on his other arm and two on his face. “You alright?” Phil asked gently. Clint’s aids were working because he nodded without making eye contact. “What happened?”

“I hate being on the fucking ground,” Clint answered. “They knocked out everyone’s tech, which meant Tony’s suit locked up. I didn’t have time to get to a vantage point yet, not that it would’ve mattered because I wouldn’t have been able to tell them anything or hear responses. So I dragged Tony as far into the alley as I could and covered him.” He paused to run a hand over his hair, and what little Phil could see of his face was etched with lines of worry.

“Tony’s fine.”

“I know. I just-- Everything was happening right in front of me and I couldn’t hear calls or anything. And you know I’ve been on the ground in fights before but those things want to kill us. I mean, that’s the only reason they’re sent here is to try and end us.” His words broke off with a shake of his head and clenching fists. “Did I do the right thing? Was I helpful?”

“Of course,” Phil immediately answered. “Of course you were. I’m sure once Tony’s finished squirreling himself away to figure out how to never let his suit get locked down ever again, he will shower you with unnecessary and ridiculous gifts to show his gratitude.” He stood and reached down to grab Clint’s hands before gently pulling him to his feet. “You sure you still want to do this?”

Clint was silent for a moment before speaking. “I can’t be on the ground anymore. If I’m not going to be able to hear things, I need to at least see everything. I can’t do that from down here and then it makes me feel—“

“You’re not a burden,” Phil stated sharply. “You’re not. You protected Tony, probably saved his life. Not a burden.” He reached up to rest his hand on the side of Clint’s neck, his thumb tracing the line of the man’s jaw. “We’ll work around this. We’ll do whatever you need done, and we’ll get through this together.”

“Yeah?” Clint asked unsteadily.

The English language could not contain the reassurance Phil needed, the words required to properly convince Clint that nothing—not even death, obviously—was a strong enough barrier to keep Phil away. He would do everything in his power and more to prove that to Clint, but he hadn’t the faintest idea how to verbalize that.

“Yeah,” he promised.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you didn't notice at the top where it listed this as the tenth out of ten chapters, this is the end for Overload.
> 
> Nadiaverse will continue. There will be a couple of one-shots before we move back to Natasha as narrator. One-shots will be posted on Sundays in February (the weekends I'm not posting 180 Days and Counting with the_wordbutler). The next multi-chapter fic, tentatively titled The Things We Become, will start hopefully in March.
> 
> Thank you all for reading this and being invested in my words. You don't know how much that means to me.

**Author's Note:**

> I have never dealt with hearing loss, nor has anyone close to me. Anything that happens in this fic is based of my own personal research. So if it's wrong, it's on me.


End file.
